Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL WAR EFFORT

Colliery Surface Worker (Prosecution)

Mr. Ness Edwards: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the widespread resentment in the district covered by the Leicestershire Mines Association at the action of the National Service Officer in prosecuting a young colliery surface worker employed at the Ellistown Colliery for refusing a direction to be engaged for underground work; that the young worker desired to be released for the Army and in consequence was sentenced to three months' hard labour; and whether he will reconsider his general policy and, in particular, allow this young man to join the Army?

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): On the recommendation of the Ministry of Fuel and Power the National Service Officer directed the young worker in question to take up underground haulage work at the Ellistown Colliery. He appealed unsuccessfully against the direction to the local appeal board, and the direction was accordingly confirmed. As he refused to obey the direction, he was prosecuted. With regard to the last part of the Question, I would refer to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren) on 18th March.

Mr. Edwards: Do I take it from that, that the right hon. Gentleman is considering a change in the general policy? If so, will he also take into consideration provision for consultation with the pit production committees, who know the local circumstances and the men?

Mr. Bevin: In the original set-up for this business, the pit production committees were brought in, but it was at the request of the Miners' Federation that they were

left out, and the responsibility was then undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power, for whom I act as agent.

Mr. Edwards: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a very great deal of dissatisfaction about this matter, and that a lot of bitterness is growing up? Will he have another look at the problem?

Mr. Bevin: I have explained in the answer to the previous Question that I am agent for the Minister of Fuel and Power in this business. If the Miners' Federation will deal with my right hon. Friend, whatever changes he wishes to make I will carry out.

Spectacle Making and Repairing

Mr. R. Morgan: asked the Minister of Labour what percentage reduction there has been in the number of persons engaged in spectacle-making and repairing at the present time, as compared with 12 months ago?

Mr. Bevin: I regret that the information asked for by my hon. Friend is not available.

Employment Agencies (Women)

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Minister of Labour the nature of the difficulties which face him in endeavouring to fit the commercial employment agencies into the scheme of approved agencies under the Women (Control of Employment) Order; and whether, to assist in their removal, he will receive a representative deputation of the employment agencies concerned?

Mr. Bevin: The difficulty is that my Department must, in the interest of the war effort, direct and control the movement of women workers. In reply to the last part of the Question, discussions have taken place between representatives of the London Employment Agents' Federation and officers of this Department on two occasions since the Employment of Women (Control of Engagement) Order was made, and unless there are some additional facts to be put forward no useful purpose would be served by a further deputation.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Will the Minister or his Parliamentary Secretary receive a deputation, which is a different matter from its


being received by officers of the Department? It may be possible to get over the difficulties and make use of private concerns with success.

Mr. Bevin: I will consider that suggestion.

Miss Rathbone: Is the Minister not aware that some secretarial employment agencies are very much more efficient in recommending secretaries and such workers than his Appointments Board, which is sometimes unable to submit one name for some appointments for which the secretarial agencies or the ordinary agencies are able to submit half a dozen names? Why is that?

Mr. Bevin: I do not accept that statement at all.

Sir Herbert Williams: As some people are willing to pay these organisations instead of using my right hon. Friend's Department for nothing, does it not indicate that they think the organisations are better?

Mr. Bevin: No, not at all. The Control of Engagement Order is set up for the purpose of running the war, and that is the prime consideration which influences my mind.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is it not well-established that the commercial agencies have special knowledge and experience in dealing with young women engaged in domestic work for employment?

Essential Workers (Military Service)

Captain Strickland: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the demand for a second front made by certain men of military age, who are themselves debarred from participation by the obligation imposed on them to remain in their industrial occupations as esential workers; and whether he will make it possible for them to give more active help by permitting them to undertake military service?

Mr. Bevin: I have no doubt that the general desire for what is commonly known as a second front is shared by many men of military age, who, on account of their occupations, are at present retained in civil life. I am afraid that I cannot undertake to release all such men from industry for the purpose of gratifying their desires, but any application from

such men to volunteer for military service would receive careful consideration.

Captain Strickland: Is permission sought or obtained from the Minister of Labour to enable these young men to pay visits to London and other places, to advance their theories of military strategy?

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir, I am afraid that no one comes to the Ministry of Labour to ask whether he should come to the House of Commons.

Captain Strickland: Are these young people not engaged on essential war production work?

Mr. Bevin: I cannot answer that question. It may be that they were working on night shifts.

Mobile Women Workers, Wigan

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the three sisters Gilbody, ages 24, 22 and 19, of 15, Slackey Fold, Off Leigh Road, Hindley Green, Wigan, employed as screen hands at the pit-head of Gibfield Colliery, near their home, have been informed that they may be directed to leave their present employment for other work at Warrington, a distance away; and whether in view of the importance of the coal industry, he will put a stop to this?

Mr. Bevin: I am having inquiries made and will communicate with my hon. Friend.

Mr. Davies: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that it seems a very strange thing to do to order pit-brow lasses, doing work in connection with the coal industry which is regarded as of such great importance, to work in some other occupation?

Mr. Bevin: I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that I cannot answer this question until I know the facts.

Engineers (National Arbitration Tribunal Award)

Mr. Kirkwood: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that engineers in certain towns have decided to ban overtime and work a 47-hour week as a protest against the recent award by the National Arbitration Tribunal and the way it is being interpreted by employers; and what steps he is taking to assist the Amalgamated


Engineering Union to obtain from the tribunal a clearer interpretation of their award?

Mr. Bevin: I have not received any request from the Amalgamated Engineering Union for assistance, and, as provided in the Conditions of Employment and Arbitration Order, it is open to any party to an award to apply to the tribunal if any question arises as to the interpretation of the award. This is the proper course to take if the need for interpretation arises.

Mr. Kirkwood: Is the Minister of Labour not aware that there are certain towns where the men have refused to work overtime and are only working 47 hours—and that is not on the Clyde? Will he do what he can to get this situation eased in order that the men may have an opportunity of giving of their best?

Mr. Bevin: I am not going to interfere in any way with the operations of the tribunal, which is an impartial body. The unions have their approach to it for their interpretation, and any man who is a member of a union and subject to executive discipline, and who disobeys that union in war-time and restricts production, is acting against the best interests of the country.

Mr. Gallacher: Is not the Minister aware that he has power, and has used it, to put workers in gaol for restricting production? Will he not put some of the employers in gaol?

Boys (Overtime)

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that, in spite of some efforts to check illegal hours of work, thousands of boys are still being overworked through overtime and thus prevented from attending pre-service or apprenticeship classes; and whether he will take further action?

Mr. Bevin: I am not aware of any evidence of illegal hours being worked to any considerable extent by boys and girls in contravention of the Factory Acts. The reports made by local education authorities in connection with the registration of boys and girls are now being examined, and I must await the result of this examination.

Mr. Lindsay: Is the Minister aware that evidence has now been available for some six months, and that I have evidence here that boys are going on parade at night and are quite incapable, in consequence, of attending their classes? I have heard that there is further evidence of the same thing happening in connection with apprentices. Will not the Minister reconsider this matter?

Mr. Bevin: I have already answered my hon. Friend. I deny that this evidence was collated and available to the Government, as a whole, six months ago. We received a paper from the Board of Education quite recently, and immediately a committee was set up by the Government to go into the whole matter and make a report and recommendations.

Mr. Sorensen: When is that examination likely to be finished?

Mr. Bevin: The committee is working full steam ahead.

Sir H. Williams: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that persistent overtime is bad both for youngsters and for adults?

Mr. Bevin: That is perfectly true, but unfortunately it is not always a question that one can control. The constant representations to me for this or that urgent requirement make the thing extremely difficult.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Will the Minister relax the pressure for these long hours, so that employers of labour may take some steps to reduce hours, not only for boys but for men and women also, in order that their health, efficiency and happiness may be promoted?

Mr. Bevin: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. It has already been done by the Production Ministries, but I must be frank and say that the habit of overtime entering into wages also makes a difficulty.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALLIED POWERS (WAR SERVICE) ACT

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Labour the position with regard to putting into force the terms of the Allied Powers (War Service) Act, 1942; and in what States and under what circumstances it is now proposed to apply it?

Mr. Bevin: An Order in Council was made on 11th March applying the Allied Powers (War Service) Act to the nationals of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Yugoslavia. The Order came into force on 1st April, and the effect is that from a date determined by the Order (in most cases 1st June next) an Allied national of military age in this country who has not by that date joined his national Forces will become liable to be called up to the British Forces under the National Service Acts, unless he has been granted a certificate of exemption by his own Government.

Mr. Mander: Does that apply to women as well as to men?

Mr. Bevin: I should like to have notice of that Question, because I am not quite sure.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIANS (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he can give the facts of the case of the boy of 15 years of age named T. J. Reynolds, of Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, who was gassed while fire-watching; and is it intended to compensate the boy's parents for their loss?

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): As I explained to the hon. Member in a letter dated 25th March, it has been accepted that this boy's unfortunate death is due to a war service injury and his father's claim to pension falls to be considered under the Personal Injuries (Civilians) Scheme. Pensions to parents under this scheme, as to parents of deceased members of the Fighting Services, are dependent on the existence of need broadly interpreted. Mr. Reynolds is not in need at the present time, but he has been advised that his case can be reconsidered on application should his circumstances worsen materially.

Mr. Smith: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he has now given further consideration to the need for awarding a pension or allowance to all parents who have lost their sons or daughters; and what action does he intend to take?

Sir W. Womersley: I dealt with this question at some length in the Debate in the House on 23rd March, and I see no reason for modifying the views which I then expressed.

Mr. Banfield: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will amend the Royal Warrant to enable the widow of a soldier, killed while returning from a 48-hour leave, to receive a pension, in view of the fact that, while the Royal Warrant may permit payment under the circumstances outlined if the soldier had been on regular leave, the 48-hour leave stands on a different footing?

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Minister of Pensions whether, in the case of an accident to a soldier returning from leave, his pension rates are affected by the length or type of leave granted to him?

Sir W. Womersley: I can already accept liability for cases of death due to accidents occurring on the direct journey to or from a member's home when the leave has been granted exceptionally, for example, for compassionate purposes or for short embarkation leave, even though the leave is 48 hours or less. I regret that I am unable to recommend that the State should accept liability for similar accidents where the member has made a journey, whether to his home or elsewhere, whilst on pass or short leave.

Mr. Banfield: Is the Minister aware that these differences seem to the public very difficult to understand? Here is a man killed anywhere in His Majesty's uniform; it seems difficult for the widow to understand how it is that she is not entitled to pension. Will he look into the whole of this matter and see whether there is not a way out?

Sir W. Womersley: I quite agree that it is difficult to understand, and I am giving this matter my most careful consideration. I have introduced, as hon. Members know, many improvements in connection with accidents, and I have still an open mind.

Mr. G. Strauss: Can the Minister say specifically whether, under present conditions, there is any difference between a man on 48 hours' leave and one on seven days' leave in regard to compensation? If there is such a difference, surely he agrees that it is quite indefensible?

Sir W. Womersley: There is no difference in compensation. If pension is granted he gets the same pension as any other Service man. There is a difference, if it is 48 hours' leave or not, as to his title to pension. There is certainly a difference in that matter.

Mr. Shinwell: If going on pass or short leave is part of the regular practice of the Forces, why should there be any distinction?

Sir W. Womersley: It is just when it is not part of the regular practice of the Forces. It is when he is going out of his own volition.

Mr. Walter Edwards: Is the Minister not aware that when a man is on 48 hours' leave, just as when he is on seven days' leave, he is subject to military laws; he has to salute in the street when he is in uniform, and the circumstances are exactly the same?

Sir W. Womersley: I have to bow to my hon. Friend for knowledge of the present war and conditions during that period, and I will not comment on that, but there are other matters to take into consideration. I have already told the hon. Member who put the Question in the first instance that I am considering it.

Sir H. Williams: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will give the number of cases in which compensation based on negligence has been denied to claimants who have been awarded payments under the Personal Injuries (Civilians) Scheme; and whether, in view of the disparity in the award under the scheme and the value of the case based on negligence, he will consider a review of all such scheme settlements?

Sir W. Womersley: The information in my Department does not enable me to say in how many cases, in which awards have been made under the Personal Injuries (Civilians) Scheme, compensation based on negligence could have been claimed but for the operation of Section 3 of the Personal Injuries (Emergency Provisions) Act, and it follows that I am unable to undertake the review of such cases.

Sir H. Williams: Having regard to the fact that under the scheme people are entitled to less in certain cases than they would have received if there had been no scheme, does the Minister think it right to continue to deprive people of their Common Law rights?

Sir W. Womersley: The Government decided at the beginning of the war that they would undertake liability for certain accidents and so forth. It is true they also took away the right of people to sue under

Common Law. That is a matter, of course, of primary Government policy, not mine.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS APPEAL TRIBUNALS

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Minister of Pensions whether any legislation will be necessary before appeal tribunals are set up; and, if so, how long he thinks it will be before it is possible for the tribunals to commence their work of adjudicating on appeals?

Sir W. Womersley: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. In the event of its being decided to introduce the necessary legislation, I am not able at present to give a reliable estimate of the time which must then elapse before the completion of arrangements to enable the tribunals to function.

Mr. Bellenger: Has it not already been decided that legislation is desirable, and is not the Minister going to implement that decision?

Sir W. Womersley: The hon. Member knows full well that any decision my Committee may arrive at must be conveyed to the Government for them to make the final decision.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Minister of Pensions what progress has been made in the direction of finding suitable personnel for appeal tribunals; and whether any steps have been taken to find suitable lawyers and ex-Servicemen for the tribunals?

Sir W. Womersley: I am not at present in a position to add to the statement I made in the House on 23rd March, except to say that my Central Advisory Committee, having received the report of the sub-committee, have made certain recommendations which are receiving consideration.

Earl Winterton: Can the Minister say when he is likely to be able to give a decisive answer in this case? Would it be possible before Easter?

Sir W. Womersley: I am hopeful that it will.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: asked the Minister of Pensions when he proposes to introduce the legislation necessary for the setting up of pensions appeal tribunals?

Sir W. Womersley: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I have given to-day to Questions on the same subject by the hon. Member for the Bassetlaw Division of Nottingham (Mr. Bellenger).

Mr. Walkden: May I ask the Minister to refer to his own speech some weeks ago, which gave real reason to the community to believe that legislation would be introduced at an early date? Will he implement the promise or give an indication when we are likely to receive this Bill?

Sir W. Womersley: My hon. Friend knows full well the procedure that has to be gone through before legislation is introduced. He knows very well that it is not any delay on my part.

Mr. De la Bère: Why does the Minister not get on with the job?

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA

Railway Sabotage

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for India whether sabotage on the railways in India is still in progress; and how many such instances have taken place in each of the last three months?

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): Instances of attempted sabotage on Indian railways continue to be reported. Some 61 such cases were reported during the last three months—28 in January, 16 in February and 17 in March. Most of these were minor attempts at interference with the track or railway property. Four only of the cases were serious or involved loss of life. These were two derailments in Assam, one in January and one in March; one derailment in Bihar in February; and a bomb explosion at Cawnpore railway station, also in February. One attempted derailment and four other minor attempts at sabotage have been reported since the beginning of April.

Sir T. Moore: Have these treasonable acts been traced definitely to Congress inspiration?

Mr. Amery: They show that the trouble is not entirely over. We have to continue to be watchful.

Food Situation

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India the present position of the famine-threatened areas of India; what further measures have been taken to secure food supplies and their distribution; and the present price of rice in these areas and elsewhere?

Mr. Amery: I do not know to what areas in India the hon. Member's Question is intended to refer. But I am glad to be able to assure him that the Government of India's latest reports show the food situation generally to be much improved. The wheat, barley and gram crops are promising very well, and the millet crop has turned out much better than was expected. Last year's rice crop, though disappointing in view of the "Grow More Food Campaign," was well above the level of harvests which India has experienced in former years without serious trouble. The Government of India have held a conference with the Provinces and States are now concerting with them details of a plan whereby deficits and surpluses shall be balanced out under Government control, with the assistance of six regional commissioners. The principal anxiety at present concerns urban supplies of rice in Bengal, where the price is six times the pre-war figure. Supplies are being brought in from neighbouring areas, and I understand that, though enough is coming forward for immediate purposes, the supply is not yet sufficiently assured to bring down the present excessive price, and action is continuing with this object in view.

Mr. Sorensen: Would the right hon. Gentleman reply to the last part of my Question, as to the price of rice? While expressing gratification that the famine threat has at least diminished, may I ask whether he could say that there is no area in India where famine conditions continue?

Mr. Amery: No, Sir. If the hon. Member will read my full answer, he will realise that the only difficulty of the price situation is in certain urban districts in Bengal. I have given him average increases in price, as there are so many varieties of rice.

Death Sentence (Kayyur Peasants)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India whether the death sentence


on the four Kayyur peasants has been carried out; whether he gave advice on this matter to His Majesty's Governor-General; and what knowledge he has of representations for clemency made by Indian public men and organisations?

Mr. Amery: The death sentences were carried out on 29th March. I have given no advice in the matter to the Governor-General, to whom the exercise of the prerogative of mercy has been expressly delegated by His Majesty. I have received no report of representations made by Indian public men or organisations, but I have no doubt that any such representations were fully considered by the responsible authorities in India.

Mr. Sorensen: While one does not in any way condone acts of violence, does the right hon. Gentleman not appreciate that the execution of these four peasants is a moral and political blunder of tragic magnitude? Will he inquire of the Viceroy what representations were made in India, and why clemency was not exercised?

Mr. Amery: No, Sir. The matter was primarily one for the courts, and then for the Privy Council, to whom a special right of appeal was transmitted. The appeal was then rejected. When the appeal was rejected the prisoners had the right to appeal to the Governor-General for mercy, and no execution could take place before the Governor-General, in the exercise of the authority expressly delegated to him, considered that mercy should not be extended.

Mr. A. Hopkinson: What crime had these people committed?

Mr. Amery: Stoning a policeman to death and drowning him while he was in the water.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Was there any specific evidence tendered against these four men who have been hanged, proving that they themselves had been party to the stoning?

Mr. Amery: I hardly expect that the hon. Member suggests that the judge who tried the case and the judge in the appeal acted without specific evidence.

Mr. Davies: The judge admitted that there was no evidence against these four men.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS (CONTROL)

Dr. Little: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the numerous complaints made, he will take immediate steps to make it impossible for so-called charitable organisations, under existing war conditions, to collect money from the public under false pretences?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): In addition to the provisions of the criminal law relating to false pretences, there are special provisions for the control of charities in the recent House to House Collections Act, 1939, and the War Charities Act, 1940. As I stated in reply to a Question on 26th November last, the inquiries which I made at that time did not show that the case for elaborating additional methods of control over charities is so strong or urgent as to justify at the present time further measures which would impose additional duties on local or other authorities.

Dr. Little: Will my right hon. Friend cast his net a little wider, and end this ramp once and for ever? I am glad the Postmaster-General has done his part, and I hope the Home Secretary will do his.

Oral Answers to Questions — PARLIAMENTARY BY-ELECTIONS

Mr. Thorne: asked the Home Secretary how many Parliamentary seats have fallen vacant since 1st September, 1938; and how many have been contested and uncontested, respectively?

Mr. H. Morrison: 139 Parliamentary seats have fallen vacant since 1st September, 1938, and 77 of these have been contested.

Mr. Thorne: I am putting no supplementary, because there are 87 Questions on the Order Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE

Fireguard Duties

Captain Poole: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that people who live in Lichfield and work in Birmingham are required to fire-watch at their place of employment; that such duty inflicts


hardship involving long periods away from home with difficulty in obtaining food; and whether he will, in view of the distances involved, consider allowing such people to fire-watch in the district in which they live?

Mr. H. Morrison: The Fire Prevention Orders are based on the principle that a man's first duty is to assist in the protection of the place where he works. There is provision, however, for the consideration of individual cases of exceptional hardship by an independent tribunal.

Travel Permits, Northern Ireland

Dr. Little: asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the dissatisfaction expressed with the present arrangement, he will frame a regulation whereby all travellers from Northern Ireland to Great Britain over 14 years of age must have a travel permit before starting on the journey?

Mr. H. Morrison: I am at present in consultation with the Government of Northern Ireland regarding a proposed amendment of the Passenger Traffic Order to regulate the travel between Ireland and Great Britain of children under 16 who are at present exempted from the requirement of a permit.

Dr. Little: Does my right hon. Friend recognise the urgency of this question and the necessity for taking action?

Mr. Morrison: I do recognise that, but here is a point on which for once I have been able to give my hon. Friend a sympathetic reply, which, I am sure, he appreciates.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FIRE SERVICE PEN SIONS (LOCAL AUTHORITIES)

Mr. Henry White: asked the Home Secretary whether he is prepared to make any alterations to paragraph 2 of Article 8 of the National Fire Service (Preservation of Pensions) Act, 1925, Regulations 1941, and Fire Brigade Pensions Act, 1925, with a view to giving relief from an unfair burden placed upon the general rate fund of a local authority on the retirement on pension of a former member of its fire brigade in consequence of a war injury; what representations he has received on this matter; and what is the case against such relief?

Mr. H. Morrison: When the fireman in question was appointed by the local authority as chief officer of their fire brigade in 1931, they became liable to pay any pension which might become due to him under the Fire Brigade Pensions Act, 1925. It is true that when he had to retire from the National Fire Service on medical grounds last year, the general rate fund of the local authority became liable for a portion of the pension not covered by the pension fund set up under the 1825 Act. The fact that the officer was a member of the National Fire Service when he was injured is not material. The Council would have been faced with precisely the same situation if there had been no National Fire Service. Moreover, it was part of the settlement with the local authorities when the National Fire Service was set up that the local authorities should remain liable for any pensions which might become due to ex-regular firemen, but should receive an Exchequer contribution in respect of ex-members of their brigades who might become entitled to pension, the contribution covering the average net pension liability. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of the relevant circular. The local authority referred to in the Question, who will have received the appropriate contribution, have asked for Exchequer assistance in meeting their liability in this particular case, and this request was sympathetically considered: but I was unable to agree to any special payment from the Exchequer in respect of this pension. I regret that I can hold out no hope of any alteration of that decision.

Oral Answers to Questions — CYCLING WITHOUT LIGHTS (PROSECUTIONS)

Earl Winterton: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that persons are still being convicted and fined for riding bicycles without lights, even where evidence has been called to show that batteries are unobtainable in the particular neighbourhood; and whether he will now consider what action can be taken to meet this situation?

Mr. H. Morrison: No, Sir. I have been informed that as a result of the operation of double summer time, together with the increased production of cycle lamp batteries, the recent difficulties have been overcome; but if my Noble Friend will


send particulars of the cases he has in mind to me or to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, the matter will be further investigated.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Has the time not come to stop arresting people for trivial offences, and to catch a few burglars?

Earl Winterton: Do I understand from the answer that my right hon. Friend will look into cases which have already occurred; and that where men have been fined and where it has been proved that they could not obtain batteries in the neighbourhood, he will have the fine remitted? Will he look into the matter?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir, I will look into the matter, but it would not be wise for me to give any general undertaking such as my right hon. Friend asks for. I did indicate to the police that they should take into account the circumstances of the case before prosecutions are made. But I think my right hon. Friend will agree that it is rather dangerous for the Home Secretary to interfere unduly with the operation of the law.

Mr. Driberg: Without interfering with magistrates, could the right hon. Gentleman not circulate a general memorandum on the difficulties of this situation?

Mr. Morrison: The hon. Member is asking that I shall issue a general circular advising that the law shall not be enforced. That is, constitutionally, a difficult thing for me to do.

Oral Answers to Questions — HIGHWAY SLOGANS (PROSECUTIONS)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that a youth, 18 years of age, was fined at Old Street, on 8th April, for writing a loyal slogan in whitewash on the footway; and whether he will urge the police to greater vigilance against those who write disloyal slogans and damage with tar the portraits of leaders of the United Nations?

Mr. H. Morrison: A by-law made by the Stepney Borough Council prohibits the defacing of the footway or roadway by advertisement or slogans. The offender in question was discovered painting a

slogan in letters 12 inches high over about 14 feet of footway, and he admitted painting a similar slogan in an adjoining street. If some other offenders have not been caught this is not due to any lack of vigilance on the part of the police, who have instructions to use special endeavours: but unless offenders are caught in the act it is not easy in cases of this kind to obtain evidence which will enable a charge to be proved in a court of law.

Mr. Driberg: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any comparative figures of the two kinds of prosecution, to reassure those who feel that there are far more prosecutions of anti-Fascists than there are of Fascists?

Mr. Morrison: I am afraid I cannot do so. It would really have no relevance to the issue. Whenever the police catch these people they prosecute them, and, if it is any comfort to my hon. Friend, I think that the Communists are at least as active in defacing the highways as the Fascists.

Mr. Driberg: rose——

Mr. Speaker: We really must get on with Questions, as there are many more on the Paper.

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the remark that has been made by the Home Secretary, is it not desirable that this House should know that the Communists got their idea of chalking on walls from the Labour Party?

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTOR VEHICLES (SPEED LIMIT PROSECUTIONS, LONDON)

Captain Sir William Brass: asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the two successful appeals against the Metropolitan police at the London Sessions, on 8th April, where the stop-watch method of trapping was criticised and where each applicant was granted £5 5s. and costs against the police; and whether the statement issued by Scotland Yard afterwards to the effect that the same methods of trapping would continue to be used in the Metropolitan area in spite of these decisions was issued under his instructions?

Mr. H. Morrison: I have obtained reports of the two cases referred to, but they do not, as my hon. and gallant


Friend suggests, involve criticism of the system of timing by stop watches. No change of system is, in fact, contemplated, but I am informed that no formal statement to the effect described in the second part of the Question was issued by Scotland Yard.

Sir W. Brass: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this was just an ordinary case of timing, that this timing is most unsatisfactory and incorrect, that it depends entirely on whether the first policeman pulls out his handkerchief at the correct moment, and that if he waits until a car is half-way down the track it doubles the speed?

Mr. A. Hopkinson: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether in future, in order to avoid the waste of time of his Department and of this House, instructions will be given that Members of this House should not be prosecuted for exceeding the speed limit?

Sir W. Brass: asked the Home Secretary how many drivers, timed by plain-clothes officers with stop watches over straight stretches of 220 yards in the Metropolitan police area were proceeded against during the six months ended 31st December, 1942, for exceeding the statutory limit applicable to the type of vehicle timed?

Mr. Morrison: Owing to the curtailment of statistical work since the war, this item is not now specially recorded and the information is accordingly not available.

Sir W. Brass: Do I understand that these statistics are not available to Scotland Yard and that no statistics are kept as to particular prosecutions for the last six months of 1942?

Mr. Morrison: My hon. and gallant Friend asked for particulars of prosecutions about a particular type of offence in particular circumstances, and I regret that information is not available.

Sir W. Brass: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when I ask a Question of him which is not satisfactory to Scotland Yard, the answer is always an evasive one?

Mr. Morrison: That is a very unworthy suspicion.

Sir W. Brass: asked the Home Secretary the total number of police officers employed on duty in operating a single police trap of the Metropolitan police variety where two officers are dressed in plain clothes and use handkerchiefs and stop watches to time vehicles over a straight length of 220 yards; and whether he is satisfied that this is work of national importance in time of war?

Mr. Morrison: The number of officers employed together in operating a single control is three. As regards the second part of the Question, I can only refer to the reply which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend on 1st April.

Sir W. Brass: The answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave me was that it saved lives on the road, and is he aware that these traps do not save a single life on the road at all?

Oral Answers to Questions — DISCHARGED PRISONERS (CLOTHING COUPONS)

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the difficulty that has arisen in the case of discharged prisoners in obtaining sufficient clothing coupons to-secure essential clothing and in purchasing necessary working clothes; and whether he will consider revising the present system under which coupons are taken from prisoners in consideration of the clothes which they have to wear in prison, but which are not their property?

Mr. H. Morrison: I am making inquiries and will communicate with my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Aeronautical Instruction

Mr. Wakefield: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware of the Aviation Education Research Project now being sponsored by the Civil Aeronautics Administration in the United States of America to promote in teachers and pupils in the schools and colleges a fuller understanding of the term "air age" with all its implications; and what steps is he taking to secure for teachers and pupils in England and Wales similar opportunities?

The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler): Yes, Sir, I am aware of this interesting project, and am taking steps to examine it more fully, so as to be in a better position to answer the last part of my hon. and gallant Friend's Question.

Women Students (Calling-up)

Mr. S. O. Davies: asked the President of the Board of Education the conditions recently laid down for the conscription of young women students, and the probable effect of such upon the staffing of our schools in the immediate post-war years?

Mr. Butler: The conditions under which women students may proceed in the coming autumn to courses of training for teachers or youth leaders are set out in Circular 1620, a copy of which I am sending to the hon. Member. The evidence I have to date gives me ample reason to believe that, as the result of these conditions, there will be no fall in the number of entrants to training colleges next autumn as compared with last year.

Teachers (Post-war Supply)

Mr. S. O. Davies: asked the President of the Board of Education what plans he has prepared, or has in course of preparation, for the expansion of our education system in immediate post-war years; and is he satisfied that the supply of fully trained teachers will be sufficient to meet the new demands?

Mr. Butler: As I have stated in reply to previous Questions, I will make an announcement on the Government's education proposals as soon as I am in a position to do so. I intend to take the steps necessary to ensure that there will be enough trained teachers to meet the needs.

Mr. Davies: In view of the unfortunate answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave to me on the previous Question, has he not now obviously abandoned all hope of any extension of our educational system at the end of this war because of the fact that there will be a very severe shortage of fully trained teachers?

Mr. Butler: Not at all. The statement recently made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National

Service indicated the specific steps that the Government have taken to encourage entrants to the teaching profession and give them opportunities for training at the end of the war.

Mr. Davies: Are we to understand that the arrangement already deferred means that thousands of young teachers will be precluded from being trained until the end of the war, and, therefore, where is he going to get his supply of trained teachers?

Mr. Butler: If my hon. Friend will study Circular 1620—and I am ready to give him any expert assistance he may desire—he may find that we are maintaining the position remarkably well in spite of the exigencies of the call-up.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH

Diphtheria (Immunisation)

Mr. Douglas: asked the Minister of Health whether he has any information about the operation of compulsory immunisation against diphtheria in Germany; and whether any conclusions can be drawn applicable to this country?

The Minister of Health (Mr. Ernest Brown): My information is that there is no general immunisation against diphtheria in Germany, but that it appears to be used locally in epidemics. The much increased prevalence of the disease in Germany, and the fact that there has been no serious increase in two enemy-occupied countries where immunisation is fairly complete, lend support to the Government's policy in advocating the immunisation of children in this country.

Mr. Douglas: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been a considerable increase in an occupied country where immunisation is compulsory?

Mr. Brown: As my hon. Friend knows, we cannot discuss that in public.

Mr. George Griffiths: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when children have been immunised it has saved the local rates a tremendous amount of money because they have not had to go into the hospitals?

Pregnant Women (Factory Work)

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the Minister of Health whether he is yet in a position


to announce a policy with regard to the employment of pregnant women in factories?

Mr. E. Brown: I am in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service on this question.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that it is of little use members of the Government, including the Prime Minister, deploring the decrease of the birth rate unless adequate provision is made for pregnant women in this country?

Mr. Brown: I would point out that my right hon. Friend and I are actively engaged on this subject now.

Mr. Hogg: As this matter has been raised several times in the last few months, I beg to give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment.

Hospital Nurses and Domestic Staffs

Mr. Hannah: asked the Minister of Labour whether his attention has been called to the great difficulty experienced by all classes of hospitals in keeping efficient from the dearth of nurses; and will he take steps to prevent further secessions from this service?

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider the advisability of taking steps to secure the return to the nursing service of trained nurses; to impose a freezing order on the domestic staffs of hospitals and to direct suitable persons to take up domestic work in isolation hospitals?

Mr. Bevin: The measures necessary to mobilise the whole of our nursing resources, including the suggestion made by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) are at present being actively considered by the Departments concerned in consultation with the recently appointed National Advisory Council. The recent registration of nurses and midwives was a first step in ascertaining our available resources. The shortage of domestic staff in hospitals is part of the wider question of domestic help generally which I am at present considering with a view to seeing what further steps can be taken to assist the position.

Mr. Thorne: Is the Minister aware of the difficulty of some nurses in getting away

from hospitals to register, and can he do anything to meet that position?

Mr. Bevin: If my hon. Friend will give me any information where that difficulty arose, I will take steps to see that facilities are provided.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the pending closing of the colony for tubercular boys at Burrow Hill, Frimley, owing to lack of nursing and domestic staff; and what steps is he taking to deal with the situation, in view of the many other health establishments and hospitals that are similarly placed?

Mr. Bevin: In reply to the first part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, on 13th April, to the hon. Member for Plaistow (Mr. Thorne), from which it will be seen that shortage of staff was not the only difficulty. As regards the second part of the Question, my Department has submitted certain domestic staff to this colony during the past few months and will continue to make every effort to meet its needs so long as the colony is kept in being. As my hon. Friend is aware, certain steps have already been taken to deal generally with the recruitment and distribution of nurses and midwives, and I have under active consideration the general problem of domestic help.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the Women's Services, such as the A.T.S. and the W.A.A.F., are not too avaricious at the expense of civilian life, and further has he any machinery to find out whether this vast and growing woman-power in the Services is being properly utilised?

Mr. Bevin: That is another question, but as a constant watch is kept upon it, and having regard to the imperative need to get as many men as possible of grade A category who are in sedentary employment into the fighting line, I do not think there is any waste going on at all.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Subsidies

Mr. Craven-Ellis: asked the Minister of Health whether the housing schemes which he is encouraging local authorities


to prepare will be subject to the payment of subsidies, annual grants or loans with favoured terms as to interest and repayment, which will allow of the rents charged being below an economic rental; and will the same terms and conditions be placed at the disposal of private enterprise?

Mr. E. Brown: As regards the first part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply, of which I am sending him a copy, which I gave on 17th March to my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. Bossom). The point raised in the second part is one which I shall consider when I receive a report from the Sub-committee of my Central Housing Advisory Committee which has been specially appointed to advise on the part to be played by private enterprise in solving the post-war housing problem.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: Will my right hon. Friend expedite that Report, as private enterprise at the present time feel that they are frozen up from taking part in the post-war housing problem?

Mr. Brown: The Committee is working very busily on the Report.

Flats (Prices)

Sir T. Moore: asked the Minister of Health whether he will take powers to publish a schedule defining the maximum prices payable in London for furnished and unfurnished flats according to accommodation?

Mr. E. Brown: The Rent Restrictions Acts apply to the great majority of dwelling houses in the country, including London, and fix for each dwelling house let unfurnished the maximum or standard rent which the landlord can recover. The landlord is required to state this rent on application by the tenant, and in cases of doubt it can be settled by the county court. Furnished lettings are not subject to standard rents, but the Acts contain provisions enabling action to be taken in respect of excessive rents being charged. I have no power to fix maximum prices, and in any case the preparation of a schedule such as that to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers would be impracticable in view of the specialised staff which it would be necessary to employ.

Sir T. Moore: Is the Minister aware that complaints have been made publicly about

the fantastic prices for furnished flats in London, by our American friends? In the interests of good will and understanding, will he take some steps, even by legislation, to put an end to this racket?

Mr. Brown: I have seen one or two complaints from various parts of London, but the issues are not so simple to deal with as has been stated by my hon. and gallant Friend.

Sir Percy Harris: Is the Minister aware that this is an appalling racket and is causing great hardship to people who, for business reasons, have to live in London and to civil servants who have had to come back to London?

Mr. Brown: Perhaps my right hon. Friend will await the return I am about to make available to Parliament from 1,500 local authorities, in which he will find that the evidence is not quite what has been stated.

Mr. Astor: Will the Minister get information from sample blocks of flats as to the rents charged before the war and the rents being charged now?

Mr. Brown: I shall be glad to look into any cases submitted to me.

Overcrowding

Mr. W. Joseph Stewart: asked the Minister of Health the percentage of overcrowding in England and Wales, county by county?

Mr. E. Brown: Owing to large-scale movements during the war, up-to-date figures are not available. The latest particulars are contained in the survey for the year 1936, and as a large tabular statement is involved I will, with permission, send my hon. Friend a copy.

Mr. Sorensen: Is the Minister aware that there is grave overcrowding in some parts of the country, which will be much worse before the end of the war and tragic when the war has finished?

Mr. Brown: In cases of overcrowding due to transferring war workers we have made special postal surveys.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR PENSIONS

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser: asked the Prime Minister whether he will move to set up a Select Committee of this House to consider war pensions?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I should not be justified in placing upon this House and on my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions the very heavy burden which would inevitably result from the appointment of a Select Committee unless the main principles of the war pensions system were the subject of serious controversy. Such questions as have been raised in Debate or otherwise do not affect essential principles but are rather concerned with matters which fall properly within the scope of existing machinery. I understand that my right hon. Friend has already brought a number of these questions before his Central Advisory Committee, on which the various parties in this House are well represented, and that others are being put down for discussion at future meetings. This procedure is likely to be much more expeditious than the deliberations of a Select Committee.

Sir I. Fraser: If we are to use this rather inadequate machinery, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he will try to improve it and make it more sensitive to the opinion of this House and public opinion? Is he aware, for example, that the Minister of Pensions himself takes the chair at this Committee and orders its agenda, and that among its members are his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the Chief Officer of the Ministry, his assistant and another officer? Further, is he aware that the Committee does not report to anyone but the Minister, so that it is a little hard to feel that it is a sensitive Committee?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend will no doubt be desirous of making sure that the Committee is properly representative, but it is not the intention of the Government to transfer any executive power in this matter from the Government.

Mr. Bellenger: Has the Prime Minister considered the recent Debate that took place on pensions matters, when hardly any hon. Member of this House had anything but criticism for the operation of the Royal Warrant at the present moment? In view of those circumstances, will he do something in the direction suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser)?

The Prime Minister: During the whole of my service in this House I have never

known any occasion when a Debate on pensions has not given universal dissatisfaction.

Mr. Kirby: Is the Prime Minister aware that under existing conditions the Minister of Pensions refuses to accept responsibility for the deaths of men killed on war service? Does he not think that something ought to be done?

The Prime Minister: That Question should be put on the Order Paper.

Earl Winterton: Did I understand my right hon. Friend to say that if there is an expression of opinion in this House, as strong as was expressed on a previous occasion, of dissatisfaction with the administration of the Ministry of Pensions, he will, in accordance with the usual practice, consider what action he will take?

The Prime Minister: I think Parliament is possessed of all the necessary powers for controlling and influencing the Executive.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN IRELAND (MAN POWER)

Sir William Davison: asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that between 20,000 and 25,000 young men and young women of military age in Northern Ireland are unemployed and making no contribution to the war effort; and whether, in view of the serious shortage of man- and woman-power in Great Britain, immediate steps will be taken to accede to the often expressed desire of the Government of Northern Ireland for the extension of conscription to Northern Ireland?

The Prime Minister: I understand that, according to the latest information, the number of men and women of all ages registered as unemployed in Northern Ireland was 19,778. I have no new announcement to make about the second part of the Question.

Sir W. Davison: Will my right hon. Friend give the reasons why the often expressed desire of the Ulster Government to have conscription in Ulster, the same as in Great Britain, cannot be acceded to, especially having regard to the great hardships being suffered in this country in order to provide the necessary men for the Armed Forces and factories?

The Prime Minister: When this matter was last raised, about 18 months or two years ago, I think, I came to the conclusion that it would be more trouble than it was worth, and I have not seen any reason up to the present moment for making a pronouncement on the subject.

Sir Hugh O'Neill: Does not my right hon. Friend think that, in view of the critical position of man-power at the present moment, he ought to take a new decision, in spite of the threats of various kinds from the neutral State of Southern Ireland?

The Prime Minister: Certainly, it is a very unsatisfactory situation when large numbers of Americans are taken by compulsion from their homes and made to stand on guard while large numbers of the local inhabitants are under no such obligation.

Sir Alfred Beit: Failing conscription, cannot the unemployed there be directed to war factories like anybody else?

Sir W. Davison: Will my right hon. Friend say why we should be content to take distinguished generals like Montgomery, Alexander and Dill from Northern Ireland and neglect to avail ourselves of the services of thousands of ordinary men and women of fine quality in that Province who are now out of employment?

Oral Answers to Questions — SERVICE PERSONNEL OVERSEAS (LEAVE)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider granting leave to those in all the Armed Forces who have seen active service abroad and have not had a leave for an extended period after the satisfactory clearing of the enemy forces in North Africa?

The Prime Minister: Everyone will sympathise with my hon. Friend's wish in this matter, but I doubt whether either the military operations or the shipping available will enable any early change to be made in the existing arrangements.

Mr. Smith: I can understand that, but will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Service Ministers to consider the special circumstances of cases where men went away two or three years ago without any leave?

The Prime Minister: I am sure those matters are being considered, but our means of transportation at the present time are limited and, of course, are subject to menace.

Mr. Tinker: Cannot the Prime Minister give some message of hope to such men? It would have a great effect on them.

The Prime Minister: I should hesitate to say anything of an indiscriminate or unpremeditated nature.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Is the Prime Minister aware that some men have been abroad for seven years during which they have not been home?

The Prime Minister: It is the steady policy to try to bring these men home.

Major Petherick: Do the men who have had a long period of foreign service abroad receive special consideration for local leave?

Oral Answers to Questions — LORIENT AND ST. NAZAIRE (BOMBING RESULTS)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Prime Minister whether he has evidence to show that the recent intensive bombing of Lorient and St. Nazaire has resulted in the destruction or serious damage to the submarine shelters there?

The Prime Minister: Some damage has been done to the shelters, but serious damage was not expected. The object of the attacks was to cause dislocation to the repair, transport and power facilities afforded by these bases to U-boats. In this respect a considerable measure of success has been achieved.

Mr. Stokes: Is the Prime Minister able to give any figures as to the weight of bombs dropped, and, if I put a Question down, will he give the number of bombers lost in these operations?

The Prime Minister: I am not able to give any figures without notice, and I cannot make any promise as to the answer which would be given if such a Question were put down, until I have had the opportunity of seeing the Question.

Mr. Purbrick: Can my right hon. Friend say whether any dive-bombers were used?

Oral Answers to Questions — POLITICAL TRUCE (BY-ELECTIONS)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Prime Minister whether, when he invited certain members of political parties to join his Government, any agreement was reached on the non-contesting of by-elections; and, in view of the fact that no candidate has any hope of being returned unless full support is given to the vigorous prosecution of the war, he will now advise that the truce at by-elections should be terminated?

The Prime Minister: The truce at by-elections was decided upon by the main political parties in the time of my predecessor. It followed therefore that when a national coalition was formed, in which all three parties officially participated with full representation in Ministerial office, the foundations and authority of the truce should be even more firmly established. The only advice I have to offer is that all those who are resolute to see the war through to a victorious conclusion should avail themselves of every occasion to mark their disapproval of trace-breakers.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the Prime Minister aware that, in spite of the ban and of all the endeavours of party leaders, including himself, to influence the position, controversy still prevails, in the constituencies, that a large number of constituencies have been contested at by-elections, and further, in view of the fact that the Labour Party is being hamstrung in the constituencies because of this truce, and that, in addition, in the United States Congressional elections took place without impairing national unity, will he not consider giving the electors the free choice of deciding for themselves the merits of the respective official candidates?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I conceive that a Government must stand together as long as it is constituted on a regular constitutional basis.

Mr. Maxton: Would it not conduce to the observation of the truce among the Prime Minister's followers in the country if he could establish one for the House?

Mr. Shinwell: Is not the Prime Minister aware that, as a result of this ban on contesting by-elections, we are creating a large number of small political groups, and following in the wake of France, where that sort of thing led to Fascism?

The Prime Minister: I cannot think these small political groups will live very long after the great parties divide and set about each other. I think that will at any rate exercise a salutary effect in clearing no man's land.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTERS' PUBLIC SPEECHES

Mr. Stokes: asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the services of the public relations officers in various Departments are used in the preparation of speeches made by Ministers in the country; and whether he is satisfied that public funds are properly expended for such purposes?

The Prime Minister: I have no official knowledge of the methods used by Ministers or indeed by Members in the preparation of their speeches, and I am certainly not going to inquire into the matter.

Mr. Stokes: Has the Prime Minister observed the almost miraculous performances of some of the Ministers who now make speeches in the country on all manner of subjects which have nothing to do with their Departments and in which they have never shown any interest in this House?

Oral Answers to Questions — BEVERIDGE REPORT (IMPLEMENTATION)

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister without Portfolio whether he anticipates being in a position to make some statement before the Easter Recess regarding the progress made in consideration of the Beveridge Report?

The Minister without Portfolio (Sir William Jowitt): No, Sir. At this stage I can only say that work on the vast field covered by the proposals is actively proceeding.

Mr. De la Bère: Is the Minister aware that there is a tinge of doubt throughout the country as to whether any really energetic progress is being made, and cannot he give us some assurance that the matter is really being proceeded with? Is he further aware that the House does not know the name of the chairman of the Committee or about anything that is going on, and is completely in the dark?

Sir W. Jowitt: I have given an assurance, which I repeat, that work on this document is actively going on.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Farm Cottages

Mr. Craven-Ellis: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will take what steps are necessary to secure early possession of farm cottages, which at one time formed part of an agricultural holding and are now let to tenants who are in no way interested in agriculture, where such cottages are essential to the proper management of the farm?

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): The Rent Restrictions Acts make appropriate provision for farmers or their landlords to apply to the court for recovery of possession of such cottages, and I do not consider that additional facilities are required.

Growing of Flowers (Instructions to Nurserymen)

Captain Poole: asked the Minister of Agriculture on what authority are representatives of his Ministry visiting nurserymen and giving notice that they will destroy in seven days all growing flower-plants; and whether he will see that nurserymen are given some definite information as to what they may grow before such drastic action is taken?

Mr. Hudson: The Horticultural (Cropping) Amendment and Consolidation Order, 1942, imposes certain restrictions on the growing of flowers on agricultural land. Growers have been made fully aware of these restrictions and in case of doubt can obtain advice from their county war agricultural executive committees to whom I have issued instructions for their guidance in administering the Order. No action of the kind referred to in the Question has been taken by any committee so far as I am aware, but if the hon. and gallant Member will furnish me with particulars of any such cases I will have them investigated.

Captain Poole: Is not the Minister aware that his county officials are giving conflicting instructions to these people, and will he consider the matter if I furnish

him with a case in point? If it is found that flower plants can be grown in boxes between vegetable plants, such as tomatoes, has the Department any objection to this?

Post-War Production

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has received the Interim Report on Post-War Food Production Policy made by the National Farmers' Union; and whether he is now ready to discuss his post-war plans with the representatives of the industry?

Mr. Hudson: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. As regards the latter part, I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement made in the Debate on the Address on 1st December last by my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: Does not my right hon. Friend think it is advisable to see the members of this body before the conference is held in America next month?

Mr. De la Bère: Will my right hon. Friend always bear in mind that he is trustee for the agricultural community?

Wheat Storage, Kent

Mr. E. P. Smith: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the fact that, in certain parts of Kent, wheat is tending to spoil in the stack as well as being overrun with vermin; whether the delay in threshing the grain is due to a lack of storage accommodation; and, if so, whether he will give the local war agricultural committees powers to requisition suitable buildings for this purpose?

Mr. Hudson: My attention had not previously been called to any serious spoilage of wheat in the stack in Kent, whether from vermin or other causes. Steps have been taken to deal with temporary difficulties that have recently occurred in this area in the disposal of wheat through the increase in threshing outturn owing to the fine weather and the limited intake capacity of the mills. Threshing must, however, be spread over the season to accord with millers' requirements. Some wheat, therefore, has to be kept in stack, which is the best place for storage, until late in the season.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: Will the Leader of the House state the Business for the next series of Sittings?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): The Business for the next series of Sittings will be as follows:
First Sitting Day—Report and Third Reading of the Catering Wages Bill.
Second Sitting Day—Report stage of the Budget Resolutions; Consideration of the Lords Amendments to the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill; and Motion to approve the War Damage (Highways Scheme) Order.
Third Sitting Day—The House will Adjourn for the Easter Recess.
If there is time during the week, progress will be made with the Settled Land and Trustee Acts (Court's General Powers) Bill [Lords], Evidence and Powers of Attorney Bill [Lords], and Courts (Emergency Powers) Bill [Lords].

Sir P. Harris: Can my right hon. Friend indicate when a day is likely to be available for the discussion of the refugees problem?

Mr. Eden: I think I dealt with that question the other day. I thought the House agreed that it would be better to let the conference have its results before we have a discussion, and I thought that perhaps, provisionally, it might be the first day after we come back after Easter.

Mr. A. Bevan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is on the Order Paper a Motion in the names of a large number of hon. Members on the subject of workmen's compensation, and that for over a fortnight we have asked for facilities for a discussion of this? Can he give an idea when that Motion can be discussed, because in the mining industry there is very great dissatisfaction on the subject?

[This House is of opinion that the scales of payment to injured workmen under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1925, deny a reasonable standard of living to the injured workman and his dependants and delays his restoration to full industrial employment, and calls upon the Government to take steps to raise the rates provided for in the 1925 Act by 50 per cent., and to adjust the method of calculating pre-accident earnings

so that the injured workmen may be compensated on an equitable basis.]

Mr. Eden: I am not yet able to say when that can be done. The hon. Gentleman is aware that there are many points of view on this matter.

Earl Winterton: In accordance with what I think is the usual practice, can my right hon. Friend say what are the topics which have been submitted to Mr. Speaker as suitable for discussion on the Motion for the Adjournment for the Easter Recess, or will he make an announcement early in the next series of Sittings?

Mr. Eden: I think I am always ignorant of these matters and that they are entirely for Mr. Speaker.

Sir H. O'Neill: Does the Prime Minister intend to make any general statement on the war before the Easter Recess?

Mr. Eden: Not so far as I am aware.

Mr. Granville: In view of the fact that the Prime Minister's Four-Year Plan has been discussed in another place and is to be discussed at the Easter conferences, would it be irreverent to suggest that we might have an opportunity of discussing it in the near future in the House of Commons?

Mr. Eden: I have had no indication that there is a general desire for this, and the present position of Business would not allow it.

Mr. McGovern: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any information about the proposed Debate on the new legislation concerning old age pensions, as a large number of hon. Members are very dissatisfied on this matter?

Mr. Eden: Progress has been made, and the Bill is now in an advanced stage of preparation. I hope it will be possible to have that discussion fairly soon after we come back after the Easter Recess.

Mr. Ness Edwards: With regard to workmen's compensation, is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that on three previous occasions we were referred to the ordinary channels, and now apparently the ordinary channels have dried up, and another technique has been suggested? Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the position with regard to workmen's compensation, which is creating very serious dissatisfaction?

Mr. Eden: I have made such inquiries as are in my power, and I have not found a very wide desire for this discussion. Certainly, I could not make arrangements for such a discussion in the present state of Business, but if there are representations, I will, of course, consider them.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is tremendous dissatisfaction in the coalfields about the basic rate of compensation?

Mr. A. Bevan: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that no representations whatsoever have been made to him by representatives of this party?

Mr. Eden: What I said was that the advice which has come to me, as is quite frequently my experience, is of a conflicting character.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. On a number of occasions we have been asked to raise this matter through the usual channels, and the right hon. Gentleman now indicates that he has not been approached through them—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of Order that the hon. Member is making.

Mr. Bevan: It is customary that, as the Leader of the House is Leader of the House, he should not mislead the House in his replies.

Miss Ward: In view of the anxiety of relatives, may we have a statement on the shackling of prisoners before the Adjournment for Easter?

Mr. Eden: I am afraid I cannot say without notice. It is not a question only for me but for the Departments concerned.

Mr. Gallacher: Can we get any information as to when we are going to have the Hydro-Electric Development (Scotland) Bill, or would the right hon. Gentleman consider handing it over to the Scottish Members to operate it during the Recess?

Mr. Eden: I shall announce the business for the week after Easter on the next Sitting Day.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE

Sixth and Seventh Reports from the Select Committee brought up and read; to

lie upon the Table, and to be printed, [Nos. 78 and 79.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, Business other than the Business of Supply may be token before the hour appointed for the interruption of Business."—[Mr. Eden.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That all the remaining stages of the National Loans Bill may be taken at this day's Sitting, notwithstanding the practice of the House relating to the interval between the various stages of such a Bill, and that when the Bill has been read a Second time, it shall stand committed to a Committee of the whole House and shall be considered in Committee forthwith."—[Mr. Eden.]

Mr. Tinker: May I ask for an explanation of what this actually means? Here is a Bill being brought before us without any explanation at all. Before it is passed some member of the Government ought to tell us what it means.

Mr. Speaker: We are not discussing the Bill now; it is merely a Motion to take all stages in one Sitting. The discussion on the Bill comes later.

Mr. Eden: I explained the reason for this the other day. We are following the precedent of previous occasions, and when, later in the day, the matter is discussed the Government will give an explanation. This is exactly the procedure followed in the preceding two years.

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[4TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee:

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1943

COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION (WEST INDIES)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a further sum, not exceeding £20, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Colonial Administration in the West Indies for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944, namely:


Civil Estimates, 1943.



£


Class II., Vote 9, Development and Welfare (Colonies, &amp;c.)
10


Class II., Vote 8, Colonial and Middle Eastern Services
10



£20."

Squadron Leader Donner: I should like to express my appreciation of the assistance given by the Secretary of State in arranging this further Debate on the West Indies, a Debate which furnishes evidence, if evidence is required, of the great interest taken in the House in the Colonial Empire. I have no desire to criticise the Report of Sir Frank Stockdale. Indeed, I should like to pay a warm tribute to the ability and tireless energy of that devoted servant of the Crown. Within the limits set by the limitations of the policy of the Governments here and in the West Indies, he has accomplished a great volume of very useful and excellent work and planned much more which I hope and pray will come to fruition. The Report itself makes only a brief reference to the Anglo-American Carribean Commission. I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend give some indication of the nature, significance and scope of the work of that Commission, because to my mind it represents a most valuable example of the best type of international co-operation. I welcome, too, the schemes for assistance to the aboriginal inhabitants of British Guiana, for schemes to deal with leprosy and venereal disease in the West Indies. 
But when that has been said, what does it all amount to? Sir Frank Stockdale, on page 82 of the Report, summarises his proposals as schemes for the general development and improvement of agricultural education, public health, water supplies, social welfare and communications, and he calls special attention on the next page to grants authorised under scheme D.13, which vary between peasant agriculture, libraries, communal wireless receiving sets, school meals, literary clubs and village water supplies—all admirable, quite admirable. But we are dealing with Dependencies where the over-population is simply appalling, where the conditions of life in some places are disgraceful, and where we shall in the immediate post-war period face a problem of large-scale acute distress unless we can devise ways and means of increasing the exports and marketing the products of the West Indies. When that fundamental fact is faced what does it come down to? It comes down to the problem of how to attract long-term capital to the West Indies, and that again is primarily a matter of guaranteeing markets and fair conditions for capital. The only alternative policy to the attraction of American as well as British capital to the West Indies is State enterprise, State loans and State subsidies. The nature and extent of such action must, of course, be decided by His Majesty's Government.
The policy, as exemplified by the Report is to concentrate upon amelioration, on social welfare schemes, subsistence agriculture, water supplies, and all the rest of it. That leaves the capitalists, American as well as British, to form their own judgment as to the probabilities of world markets. That, in my submission, is the way to attract the very worst form of capital from the point of view of the native inhabitants of a tropical or any other dependency. We do not want to attract to the West Indies short-term finance capital which is interested only in a particular crop; is uninterested in obtaining the best machinery, uninterested in long-term advertising and in the slow building up of market goodwill. On the contrary, I believe that we want to attract long-term capital and we want to do so for two purposes—for the development of main industries such as sugar, cotton, bananas, cocoa, timber, rum, coffee, and above all for the purpose of developing secondary industries and processing, not

only in order to stimulate exports but also in order to meet internal local consumption.
It is generally agreed that the fundamental problem in the West Indies is that the increase of population bears no relation to the productive capacity of the islands, and, indeed the improvements foreshadowed in Sir Frank Stockdale's Report, such as improvements in health and housing which we all welcome, will, in fact, aggravate this problem because they will lead directly to a further increase in population. That, in itself, lends urgency to the plea which I am putting forward for the creation of correspondingly increased possibilities of employment for the peoples of the West Indies, and that result, I think, can only be achieved by the creation of secondary industries and processing. The answer to over-population in tropical as well as temporate climes must be industrialisation. That is a process which began before this war in South America and India. It will be slower but inevitable in Africa too. The real question before this Committee is not whether the whole world shall become more industrialised but whether in a tropical world which is rapidly becoming industrialised the West Indies are to participate, are to come in at the beginning and share in the advantages from the beginning, or are to be left behind.
Many of the obvious developments have already begun in the West Indies. In a sense rum is a development or a processing of sugar and other instances could be given. But long-term advertising of the main products still leaves far too much to be desired. Blue Mountain Coffee ought to be a household word throughout the world. It ranks with some of the best Kenya coffee as perhaps the best in the world. I should perhaps say at this point that I have no financial interest in either of the products which I have mentioned or indeed in any West Indian product. Again, the engineering world as a whole does not know the amazing qualities of purple heart and other British Guiana timbers, or the astonishing water resisting qualities of green-heart. Why is it that the engineering trade does not know of these things? It is precisely because long-term capital interested in long-term development marketing and advertising has not been attracted in sufficient quantities to the West Indies. I should, therefore,


welcome any action taken by the Government to make long-term arrangements, say with the United Fruit Company of America and to interest American capital in the potentialities of the West Indies and to create conditions in which British capital also will be attracted to these Islands in the immediate post war period. If long-term capital could be attracted to them, there is room for a very varied expansion of secondary industries.
How rich such developments could be made will be seen in the variety of existing industry. The soil of Grenada has been compared with that of Java. There is balata, arrowroot nutmeg and mace, turtle, salt, pimento and lime juice, many of which could be either further produced or further processed in the islands. Why, for instance, should not arrowroot biscuits be made in the West Indies? Why should not cloves and other spices be produced? Why should not the gum of the sapodilla tree which is grown in British Honduras be developed and actually exported as chewing-gum and a market found for it in Canada, Newfoundland and South America? Again, curacao and angostura bitters are popular drinks. Why should not the West Indies produce liqueurs as has been done with success in South Africa? Again why should they not manufacture their own cocoa products? Is it inconceivable that some of the bauxite of British Guiana should leave that Colony in the form of aluminium articles? Is it inconceivable that locally-made church furnishings of cedar and satin-wood should find a place in the regard of the whole ecclesiastical world? What has been done in the Dutch and American islands and colonies could be duplicated in the British colonies. Why should there not be grape fruit bottling factories? Grape fruit juice is one of the most popular modern soft drinks. Again why should not bay trees be planted and bay rum produced and made into a valuable export? Fish canning possibilities in the Bahamas might be explored and as I have mentioned the Bahamas, may I, for a moment, turn aside to ask my right hon. and gallant Friend whether he will be so good when he replies as to give us some indication of the general position arising from the report recently placed in the Library dealing with the riots which took place

in those islands last July. Then again, take the case of concrete which could be manufactured in Jamaica and in Trinidad. In the latter island there exists the oil fuel necessary for its manufacture on the spot.
If long-term capital could be attracted to these islands then indeed the West Indian market might itself be developed. Furniture such as chairs and tables has been made in the West Indies for some generations. Could not the Government give information to those people who make furniture and tell them what is required, what kind of office furniture is in demand and so develop that industry further? Similarly straw hats, baskets, brooms, Spanish drawn thread-work all could be manufactured. Lace, English and Venetian, has been made with success in Madeira to my knowledge and I see no reason why it should not be made also in the West Indies. I shall say nothing at all of the possibilities as regards plastic materials, wood pulp materials or of a rubber industry as I wish to confine my observations to the immediate practical possibilities in the years following the conclusion of this war.
What is the sine qua non, what is the essential basis of all this? It is, as I think, either State enterprise, State subsidies, State grants, or else the attraction to these islands of long-term capital, American as well as British, which is prepared to undertake the inevitable risks involved in the establishment of any new industry. Certain steps are obvious, for instance sane, cautious and far sighted planning of Imperial preference which is neither niggling nor bargaining. New industries should be encouraged and given all kinds of help such as being freed from taxation and rates for an average period of say five years, but the respite should be given for longer periods where the building up of markets and goodwill is a slow process and it would be especially valuable in cases where complicated machinery is required. The establishment of secondary industries and processing is essential to meet local needs and to absorb the surplus population of these islands. It can be done by attracting long-term capital or by giving credit facilities. I believe that long-term capital can be attracted provided stability is assured, provided considerable freedom from taxation is given, provided subsidies are


brought into being to ensure low freights and provided useful information is given by the Government where it can be given. In regard to credit facilities, the Stockdale Report on page 141, paragraph 37, includes a useful observation, but I think that that reference might be extended to cover secondary industries as well.
The Government must decide whether loans to industry should be given at no rate of interest or at very low rate, and the basis of their decision should rest upon the employment value of the proposed new industry and upon its export wealth production. If these things were done, I believe that processing and secondary industries could be started, varied and developed. Again, I would plead for subsidised shipping between the West Indies and the United Kingdom, particularly for bananas, which have to compete with the Canaries. Sir Frank Stock-dale speaks of the eventual establishment of a regular British passenger service to the West Indies and an inter-land steamer service. In both cases the services would have to be frequent as well as regular. I have tried to consider the effect on these suggestions I have submitted if the Morgenthau or the Keynes plans were adopted. I do not think that if either scheme were adopted these suggestions would be hindered or adversely affected. Indeed, the Keynes plan echoes and emphasises what I have said with regard to the arbitrary, undesirable and unpredictable influence of speculative short-term capital.
I would like to ask my right hon. and gallant Friend not only to consider the suggestions I have put before him, but to give a categorical assurance that he will establish the machinery to investigate how long-term capital, American as well as British, can be attracted to these islands so that the economic troubles of the islands can be dealt with at the root. I am afraid that my right hon. and gallant Friend will say that I am again asking for the establishment of an Advisory Development Board. If he does, I am bound to say that he is perfectly right. The trouble with the West Indies as with several other colonies is that there are too many eggs put into too few baskets. If we could have had machinery in the past whereby the Dominions could have had some say and participation in the economic development of the Colonies, I

do not believe this position could ever have arisen, because the Dominions, much more than ourselves, have used tariffs most intelligently for the purpose of diversifying and developing industry. If possibilities exist of building up processing and secondary industries in the West Indies, where there is no great wealth of natural resources and minerals, except bauxite in British Guiana and oil in Trinidad, where there is an appalling problem of over-population, what cannot be done elsewhere in the British Empire where the possibilities and potentialities are so much greater and the natural handicaps fewer if only we could have the machinery to plan and consider what the future can create. I welcome Sir Frank Stockdale's Report as far as it goes. I think that the Government have done well and begun to find the way to cure the patient, but I should like to see them proceed further on a positive health policy. The first they ought to do and not to leave the other undone.

Mr. Riley: I should like to join with the hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke (Squadron-Leader Donner) in congratulating the Minister on the production of the Stockdale Report on conditions in the West Indies. As one who has taken some interest in West Indian affairs for a number of years, I welcome the comprehensive and able Report which has been presented by Sir Frank Stockdale and his careful survey of the last 18 months or two years. I have some criticisms to offer as I go along, but I want to make it clear that I appreciate the thought which has been applied for many long years to get at the real problems which are presented by conditions in the West Indies. We have had Commission after Commission for the last 30 years or so. The Reports extend from as far back as 1897 to the Royal Commission of 1938, but never before has there been anything like the competent examination of the problems to be faced and the same well-thought-out recommendations for their solution as on the present occasion. I want also to express my gratitude to the Minister for the way in which he has met the long-drawn-out controversy in Jamaica with regard to the revision of the Constitution. For the last two years or more there has been considerable perturbation in Jamaica about this subject, and a very lively opinion has


demanded some definite alteration in the Constitution extending the powers of self-government. After two years of controversy the Minister is to be congratulated on having succeeded where his predecessors failed in getting an understanding between the people of Jamaica and the people of this country. I have no authority to speak about whether the proposed changes will be accepted, but I think that on the whole they will be. There is certainly a great advance based on universal suffrage and a fairly substantial share of almost responsible government by the proposed elected members.
Having said that, I want to come to the main point of criticism which I have to offer about the Stockdale Report. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke that valuable recommendations are made dealing with all phases of social welfare, health conditions, education and social amelioration. All that is to the good, but where I think the policy as foreshadowed in the Report falls short is in its failure to lay the proper emphasis upon a radical alteration in the West Indian islands with regard to the relationship of the people in the West Indies to the land out of which they have to get their living. In going through the Report, I was disappointed to find that of the £6,000,000, which is the approximate amount which it is intended to expend upon the various schemes described in the Report, only £200,000 is earmarked for land settlement, for extension of peasant holdings and for the encouragement of the mass of the population to play their part in lifting the standard of life in these Colonies. I know that under the general heading "Agriculture" there is a sum of £2,250,000, but under that heading are included agriculture, afforestation, fisheries, drainage, irrigation and land settlement, and only £200,000 is to be made available for direct assistance to the masses of the people to increase food supplies and to improve the use of the resources of the island, and thus make their contribution to the raising of the standard of living.
When all is said and done, apart from the oil in Trinidad and the bauxite in British Guiana, all the 18 islands—and Jamaica is the largest of them—are essentially dependent uopn the development of agriculture, as they have no great mineral resources. The admitted line of development, as has been insisted upon by every

authority who has examined the position in the West Indies, is to lift the standards of agriculture and of peasant cultivation, raising increased food supplies and thus providing employment for the masses of the population. It is true, as the hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke has said, that side by side with that work of developing the natural resources of the island there is the useful work of developing ancillary secondary industries.
I do not see any great prospect of big business embarking upon enterprises in the West Indian islands, because the natural resources do not lend themselves to industry on a large scale at all. What industries may grow up alongside agriculture in Jamaica will be of the nature of ancillary industries to assist and to supplement the natural industry, agriculture. Therefore, I regret that the problem of getting down to a much more intensive use of the land in Jamaica by the mass of the people has not been tackled more radically, and larger provision made for the schemes which Sir Frank Stockdale has elaborated in his Report, because when all this work of social amelioration has been done, when health conditions have been made better, when education and housing have been improved, the maintenance of those higher standards which have been brought about by this welfare expenditure will depend in the long run on raising the economic capacity of the people themselves. Therefore, I suggest that sooner or later, and the sooner the better, there will have to be in the West Indian islands a drastic redistribution of land ownership and a better use of the land.
What are the facts? Only yesterday, in answer to a Question to the Minister, we were told that negotiations are going on between the United States and ourselves for a transfer of labour from the Bahamas, Jamaica and other islands to work in the United States of America. I was informed the other day, in answer to a Question, that in Jamaica alone, I think, 12,000 labourers were on relief work, although there is an enormous amount of land which, if they were given the opportunity of utilising it, with enlightened assistance as foreshadowed by the hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke, would enable them to live within their own territories without having to seek a living abroad. In Jamaica, which I will take as an illustration of other islands which I might


mention, there are about 2,500,000 or 2,750,000 acres of land. I see from the latest returns that, of a population of about 1,200,000, 800 people in Jamaica own and control more than half the land. There are 153 people who own, on the average, over 3,000 acres. On the other hand, 80,000 peasants were shown to have less than one quarter of an acre each on which they make their livings. If you take the round figure of population of 1,200,000, there are 600,000 peasant families with less than four acres of land on the average on which to earn their living. It is there that one finds the economic factor which could be utilised for the purpose of achieving a permanent change in the economic life of the West Indies. I therefore want to urge upon the Minister this aspect of a much more drastic and vigorous policy, recognising the natural resources of Jamaica, their agricultural character, and the necessity of gradually building up an educated and enlightened peasantry, cultivating the land both for food and for certain export crops. In that direction lies the only way of a permanent solution of the problem with which Jamaica and the West Indies are faced.
Having said that, I would now briefly refer to another aspect of the Report which has very much impressed me, as to the inadequacy of the finances provided by the Act of 1940 to achieve the purposes which Sir Frank Stockdale is charged to carry out and which are envisaged in the Report. They comprise something like 160 schemes of various kinds in the matter of finance. What are the broad facts with regard to finance? The Colonial territories of the Caribbean Sea stretch away from Central America to the Western Atlantic. For a number of years before the war, it was recognised that poverty was rife in them. To some extent that poverty has been accentuated by war conditions. It is not disputed that, apart from trade depressions in staple commodities such as bananas, and difficulties in regard to sugar, there has been a growing condition of unemployment, social unrest, poverty, bad housing and bad social conditions. There are exceptions, of course, but most of the islands share that condition of extreme poverty. It spreads over those vast areas with a population of about 3,000,000—and we are providing only a sum of £1,000,000 a year for a period of 10 years.
I submit to the Minister and the Committee that if the hopes are to be realised which are raised in this very competent Report by Sir Frank Stockdale, if these schemes, which we all support, and which we realise are long overdue, are to lead to a better state of affairs in our West Indian Colonies, that result cannot be achieved on £1,000,000 a year. What does it amount to? It may seem a somewhat startling figure, but taking the population as a whole, the £1,000,000 per year works out at 6s. 8d. per head, to turn the West Indies upside down from poverty into prosperity. It cannot be done. All the way through the Report Sir Frank Stockdale comes back to the point that if he only had a longer programme and larger resources, what things he might do.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): Would the hon. Member kindly quote some of those passages?

Mr. Riley: I am sorry to say that I have not the exact paragraphs of the Report just before me, but I can say that, in regard to schemes of housing, Sir Frank refers to the point that he would require a 20-year programme to carry out the schemes which he has in his mind. The Act of 1940 gives only a 10-year programme, and the whole of the money is only £10,000,000; whereas the Royal Commission, which the Colonial Development Act, 1940, is supposed to implement, visualised a period of 20 years, with £1,000,000 a year. All that can be altered. It is a matter of feeling one's way and of the Government changing their policy or attitude in the light of developing circumstances. Of the £1,000,000 a year, only some £200,000 is devoted to the fundamental questions of agriculture, land settlement and development.
But that is not all. I should like the Minister to say something on this point when he comes to reply: Owing to the delay, which we may assume had inevitably to occur between the development of the schemes of the Stockdale Report and the passing of the Act of 1940 under which the power is given, we are likely to lose something like £2,500,000 of that £10,000,000, because it has not been spent. I asked a Question some time ago on this matter, and I found, so


far as the information could be given, that to the end of June, 1942, two years after the Act was passed to carry out these reforms, only some £250,000 had actually been spent. By June of this year a third year will have been completed, and I am fairly near the mark in saying that we shall actually have spent only about £500,000. Under the Act we are entitled to £3,000,000, except that the Act has a provision in Section 4 that any moneys not spent in the current year lapse and go back to the Treasury. Are we to lose £2,500,000 of the prospective £10,000,000, or are some steps to be taken so that we can retain it for use for the purpose for which it was intended? Those are some of the aspects to which I would like the Minister to give his mind, so that the very best may be made of the financial resources.
My last point is a proposal which has been made on many previous occasions, and I make no apology for reviving it once more. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who preceded me in the Debate spoke of the pressure of the situation in those West Indian Colonies which will follow the conclusion of the war. Difficult and acute as the economic conditions may be under war conditions, when the war is over we may have, in the changing situation of the world, even bigger problems to face in maintaining the standards of the West Indies, and taking steps to maintain economic life and expand it, than we had before the war broke out. Are we to be content to wait until that situation arises? Why is it that in recent years we have had before us in this House these West Indian conditions and problems, which never forced themselves upon our attention before? Why is it that we have had, in these West Indian islands, the growth of unemployment, poverty, bad social conditions and stagnation which everybody who has had the opportunity of seeing them on the spot must feel are no great credit to our Colonial administration? I am not wanting to deride the spirit and attitude of this country towards its Colonies. I know that the intentions of our country and our Governments have been admirable and almost humanitarian, on the whole. I make no charge of ill-treatment or of tyranny. Why is it? Everyone knows, and it is admitted. In a speech a few weeks ago the Home Secretary referred to our Colonial possessions and said there

was no doubt whatever that there had been neglect in the past.
These problems have come before us and are present now because there has been neglect. Why has there been neglect? Because very largely this House has not been kept in touch with the situations which have been developing in some of these Colonies. There has been a certain, I do not say deliberate, but a policy of secrecy on the part of the Colonial Office to retain complete control, as it were, and keep within their own domain the questions of what is to be done, what is taking place and what are the remedies to be applied for evils which are arising. It is because there has been that neglect that we are face to face with all these problems before us to-day.
I want to suggest to-day what I have suggested before, that in order to put this House in a position to enable it to fulfil its responsibility, as the Imperial Parliament, to these Colonial territories which we have had in our charge in the West Indies for 250 years, some of them as long as 300 years, we should be in closer touch with what is taking place and make this House acquainted regularly and systematically with the measures called for. As my concluding word in this Debate, I urge once more the advisability of the Secretary of State and the Government seriously considering whether the time has not arrived, particularly in view of post-war prospects and developments in our Colonial affairs, which have impressed not only ourselves but our Allies and Allied Governments, and in view of good understanding and co-operation, when this House should create a Joint Parliamentary Committee representative of both Houses, not to rule the Minister, but to be in a position, as a Colonial Committee, to have before it periodically and regularly developments of situations and problems which arise there, to survey them, examine them and make a contribution of advice. I would urge that the time has come when that Standing Committee should be appointed not only in the interests of the Colonies but in the interests of this Imperial Parliament as well.
In that connection may I say that since this question was raised on the last occasion there has been a very striking corroboration of that point of view from a very experienced ex-Colonial Governor? I notice that Sir Hubert Young, who was


Governor and Commander-in-Chief in Trinidad, and a former Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Northern Rhodesia and of Nyasaland, and a Civil Servant with very wide Colonial experience, made this remark in an address to the Empire Parliamentary Association on 28th January this year:—
This brings me to the question of how the policy of His Majesty's Government can best be formulated and kept on an even keel. Just as a Governor may, and probably will go wrong and upset all prospects of continuity of policy in a Colony if he does not follow a long-term plan which has been framed with the willing co-operation of the permanent elements in the community, so I think the Government at home may go wrong unless they follow an agreed general policy for each Colony or group of Colonies, which has been framed with the willing co-operation of all political parties. In order to arrive at and stick to these agreed policies it seems to me that there might well be a standing committee of both Houses of Parliament under the chairmanship of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whose duty it would be to formulate them in consultation with administrative experts. In the framing of such policies it is essential to look ahead positively, in the same way as a progressive and efficient business concern looks ahead and plans for the development of its own and other people's resources.
I suggest that that is a remarkable testimony on the part of a highly qualified——

Colonel Stanley: Could I ask the hon. Member one point? Has he quoted that with approval? He will realise that it proposes a Joint Committee which will formulate proposals, and of which the Secretary of State will be chairman, and which will take over from him and Parliament the responsibility for Colonial policy.

Mr. Riley: I would not tie myself down literally to the words used by Sir Hubert Young. I should not insist that such a Committee should have the right to decide policy, but that it should be of an advisory character. But I am quite certain that that is the kind of line of development which has been long asked for in this House and will be welcomed by parties on all sides of the House.

Sir Leonard Lyle: I would like to offer my respectful and very sincere congratulations to the Secretary of State on three main events which have taken place during the last month concerning his Department and the development of our Colonial Empire. The first is

the production of the suggested new Constitution for Jamaica; the second is the issue of the Report on welfare and development by Sir Frank Stockdale; the third, and by no means least important event, to my mind, is the heartening and gratifying statement he himself made recently in a speech stating what the British Government view was as to their obligations with regard to maintaining the British Empire. He gave expression to views which are very sincerely and very deeply felt by a large number of people, I think I can say the vast majority of people, in this country, and certainly the vast majority of the people of the Empire. It was what many of us had been thinking, and it was what many of us had been hoping that some more authoritative voice than our own would say. It was very timely, and it was very refreshing. In my opinion, the statement of our intentions was not made one moment too soon. I think it is always far better, when you are dealing with fundamental principles, to be quite honest and open and to speak plainly and without equivocation. Such action is appreciated by one's friends, and though it may not be appreciated quite so much by those who are, shall we say, less friendly, at any rate it is well understood.
We are also very grateful to the Prime Minister for his statement when he said we were prepared to stand by our obligations to our Empire and that we have had every intention of holding what was our own. These statements by Ministers of high rank have proved doubly necessary, because even in the last fortnight statements have been made by some of our friends in the United States which show an utter and complete lack of understanding of what the British Empire means to us and how close are the ties which bind all of us together. After all, it should not give offence to anybody to say what we have said. No one has any right to be offended. For instance, suppose the father of a family is in a position where somebody comes in and says that he is going to look after or take an interest in, his family. He has a perfect right, and no one has any right to be offended, if that father declares he is not going to allow anyone to cross the sacred threshold of the family circle to deal with the upbringing of his children, at any rate until they are of age. That father certainly knows very well also that if he did not object to someone, even a friend,


coming in and taking control, his children, if they were high spirited children, would certainly object themselves. He also knows very well that if he went in and suggested that he should take control of the family of his friend, he would get a very quick answer from him, accompanied by what children might describe as a very quick kick in the pants if he did any such thing.
With regard to the Jamaica Constitution, I will only say that I think it is a very statesmanlike approach to what is a very difficult problem, and it is a difficult one from many points of view. But from what I hear from Jamaica it has been extremely well received, both by the vast majority of the people and also by the political parties in the island. With regard to the Stockdale Report, I feel we should not only congratulate the Secretary of State but also pay a tribute to Sir Frank Stockdale himself, because he has not only prepared a very excellent survey, but I think we ought to thank him and pay him a tribute for the long hours of hard work he has put in, as I happen to know, in very often difficult and trying climatic conditions [Interruption]—and his advisers too. It is all very well for people who are out there, and have been bred and brought up out there, but for someone to go out from this country suddenly and have to remain under most trying climatic conditions for a considerable time working hard, it is a very considerable strain. It is an excellent Report, but also we hope it is merely the beginning of a big improvement in the health and welfare of those great-hearted and loyal supporters of the British Empire who live and have their being in the Carribean Seas. Although we feel it is a good start, we feel there is something even better to follow.
I do not wish to take up too much time, because I know there are other Members who wish to speak, and on the last occasion I myself suffered from the fact that there were too many wishing to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. Therefore, it is impossible to go into very great detail, as one would have liked to, on many of the points. But there is one point I wish to make, and I shall make it perfectly clear if I can. It is this: Good though the Stockdale Report is, and excellent as our intentions are, the suggestions contained in that

Report are only palliatives. No one who knows anything about it will differ from me when I say that the prosperity and well-being of the people of the West Indies depend upon the primary industries of the country being placed upon an economic basis. Put shortly, they depend upon a healthy and prosperous agriculture. I believe that there will be no lasting prosperity or welfare in the West Indies, unless you are prepared for annual subsidies from this country on a massive scale, unless the primary industries are put upon an economic basis. At present they are not on such a basis. I have great diffidence in putting forward this view, because I am an interested party. Most hon. Members know that, but to those who do not know it I want to make it perfectly plain. I have always felt that Members of this House are very tolerant, and that if you tell them honestly where you are interested, they want to know your views. It would be absurd to say that if some hon. Member is an expert on agriculture and is interested in agriculture, it would be improper for him to speak on agriculture, or that an hon. Member who was interested in coal, either from the employers' side or the employees' side, should not be able to give his advice on that subject. However that may be, the facts speak for themselves. If they are examined, it will be quite clear that what I say is correct.
Some people try to make out that there must, of necessity, be a great difference in the outlook on policy of capital and labour. I do not agree. In the old days, when we were arguing the questions of tariffs and free trade, I always held the view that the interests of capital and labour were identical, at any rate, in securing the trade and in turning out the goods concerned. You might as well try to divorce the two wings of an aeroplane as try to divorce the interests of capital and labour. The first thing is to get the business. After you have got the business, after the profits are made, there may be differences of opinion as to how the profits, if any, should be divided. That is the time to differ if we must differ. So it is in the West Indies to-day. If profits are inadequate, capital and labour are going to suffer together. I make the considered suggestion to those two interests that they should get together and do their best to see that their industries are put on an economic basis. Until that it done,


there cannot be a real solution of those problems which we are all so anxious to solve.
I do not want to go into details on the Stockdale Report, or on any other subject, but I want to bring out a particular point. I have got out some figures regarding the rates of dividends paid in the last few years. I took the two best sugar companies in Trinidad—not badly managed companies, but well-run, efficient companies, one of them controlled by my group. The average rate of dividend for the last 10 or 12 years for one company was 2.19 per cent., and for the other company it was 3.23 per cent., making an average of 2.94 per cent. gross profit over a period of 10 or 12 years. I do not think that you can possibly attract capital for the West Indies on such a return as that, in view of the risks which have to be run, which include the vagaries of weather, pests and the hazards always associated with tropical agriculture. It may be said with justification that the West Indian producer is likely to be attacked on both flanks. He is going to be faced with increased costs of labour, material and management, and he is receiving a price which does not equal the increased costs incurred. If this state of affairs is allowed to continue, things will get steadily worse, and not better. It may be fairly said that only when the producer receives a reward adequate to his efforts and labour receives a fair wage for the work done will it be possible for the West Indies to move forward to a brighter future.
I think that of all the questions of welfare which Sir Frank Stockdale mentioned by far the most important is housing. Education is very little use, health cannot be satisfactorily improved, hygiene cannot be tackled unless the housing problem is dealt with. I would add that my companies have done their best, and some of my hon. Friends opposite, including my hon. Friends the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley) and the Member for Rochdale (Mr. Morgan) have paid generous tributes to them. I am grateful to them for it. We have attempted reforms in housing, medical attention, clinics and health services generally, but there is a limit, I think, to what can be expected of a company struggling in the West Indies. Housing conditions have undoubtedly been dreadful, but I do not think it is quite fair to blame the sugar

companies for those conditions. At any rate, I cannot be blamed, because we only went out there in 1937. Any bad housing which existed there before that time cannot be attributed to any policy of ours. Something must be done about housing, but I would like to tell hon. Members how difficult it is. Housing out there is not cheap. I have pictures here of houses which have been put up in Trinidad and other places by my companies; I shall be pleased to show them to hon. Members. They are of wood, which you would not think should be very expensive, but to put up a house for a foreman, or perhaps somebody of a little better type, would cost between £700 and £1,000. [An HON. MEMBER: "Before the war?"] Yes. A type suitable for the working man would cost between £150 and £200. They are nice little houses but quite simple. In Jamaica alone we have 8,000 native employees, and if we were to put up houses for every one of those people, at between £150 and £200 each, that would cost the company at least £1,300,000. What has happened in the past is another matter. The Government must be responsible for housing the floating population, which is here to-day and gone to-morrow. The key men and the men who are on our estates we are prepared to provide for, but the local Government must deal with the others.

Sir Robert Rankin: Are they houses or bungalows?

Sir L. Lyle: I do not know how you would describe the difference between houses and bungalows. We can give land for houses, and we are prepared to do so free of charge. We have notified the Government of that fact. We have offered 300 acres in Frome, Jamaica, and 300 acres in another part of the country. I am glad to say that, under the progressive and enlightened Government we now have in Jamaica—[Interruption.] My hon. Friends may disagree, but they are getting a move on. In this case they have asked us to supply 300 acres, and they are going ahead with building. They are, at any rate, taking action. It shows that they agree in principle with what I am saying, and that they are moving in the matter.
I will end, more or less as I began, by offering my sincere congratulations to the Secretary of State and my full co-operation, and everything I can give, in the


great task to which he has laid his hand. I hope very much that his tenure of office may exceed in years the number of Secretaries of State who have held that office in the last decade and have flitted like ghosts across the Colonial horizon. If he can give us as many years as we have had Secretaries of State, we shall feel that we have done well. I am sure that he will continue strenuously to uphold the view that there must be no tampering with the British Empire, which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest instruments for good that the world has ever seen. I will end by quoting from something which seems rather apt. It is not very long, and it deals with our Empire:
You, Mr. Hitler, said it caused you pain to think that you should be chosen by destiny to deal the death blow to the British Empire. It may well cause you pain. This ancient structure, cemented with blood, is an incredibly delicate and exquisite mechanism held together lightly now by the imponderable elements of credit and prestige, experience and skill, written and unwritten laws, codes and habits. This remarkable and artistic thing the British Empire—part Empire, part Commonwealth—is the only world-wide organisation in existence; the world equaliser and holder of the equilibrium, the only world stabilising force for law and order on this planet. And if you bring it down, the planet will rock with an earthquake such as it has never known. We in the United States will shake with that earthquake, and so will Germany.
Those were the words of a great American—I think she is a great American—Miss Dorothy Thompson in a broadcast here in 1940. I commend them not only to hon. Members who need no converting but to all who do not know or understand the greatness and the glories of the British Empire.

Captain Gammans: I would like to add my tribute to the many which have been paid to the excellence of Sir Frank Stockdale's Report. Those of us who have the privilege of knowing Sir Frank would agree that no better public servant could have been chosen for this great task and that his Report is a very happy mixture of realism and idealism.
I do not propose to comment on the Report in any great detail, but in one or two respects I must express some misgiving, not so much at what is in the Report itself, but at the course that this Debate took on the last occasion. There is a great danger of the feeling growing up that you can cure every evil in the

world and create an earthly paradise anywhere if you pass enough Acts of Parliament and spend enough money. In fact the power of legislation and of money in human affairs is very much more limited than many people think. I cannot help feeling that the situation in the West Indies is a case in point. The position there is undoubtedly most unsatisfactory. We must ask ourselves, how much of it can be put right by legislation here in Westminster and by the spending of money, and how much in fact cannot? In certain directions our duty is thoroughly clear. In almost all the islands we need better water services, better housing, better medical and health services and a vast extension of education both cultural and technical. I hope that there will be no undue delay or niggardliness in putting these reforms into operation as soon as conditions permit. The West Indies are our oldest Colonies. They have stood by us loyally in every war in which we have fought, and now is the chance for us to repay them. But it is no good our pretending that Acts of Parliament or the spending of money will do all that is required. No real improvement can be expected unless there is a changed outlook on the part of the people themselves as well. Sir Frank Stockdale brings this out in his Report when he says:
Greater attention should be paid to constructive than to relief services.
For example, no action we can take here can help to improve the appalling position regarding venereal deseases or raise the level of the family organisation where at present between 60 per cent. and 70 per cent. of all births are illegitimate. Nor can we here be expected to develop those qualities of self-help and leadership without which, in the long run, no nation can flourish. As education improves and there is an expansion of health and medical services, so we can expect an improvement in these moral qualities. That is undoubtedly true. But there is bound to be a time lag; it is bound to take time before physical improvements show themselves in the other field as well.
Perhaps the Committee will allow me to illustrate this point by a personal experience which I have never forgotten. Some years ago, in an entirely different part of the world, it fell to my lot to help to organise co-operative societies in the Malay States. The problem there was clear and unmistakeable. We had a


peasant, who was producing an inferior article and selling it through a series of middlemen. Moreover, he was largely in the hands of moneylenders. Luckily we did not have the moral problems of either disease, overcrowding or illegitimacy such as we have in the West Indies. However, before I started this difficult task, I did my best to equip myself for it. I studied agricultural organisation in every country of Europe and every Province of India, and I even saw something of what other Colonial Powers were doing, the French, the Dutch and even the Japanese. After a year I came back bursting with enthusiasm and good ideas and proceeded to organise Raiffeisen credit banks and to start marketing societies on the lines of what had proved so successful in Denmark. At the end of four years' very hard work we had to admit an almost 100 per cent. failure. There were two reasons for it, which, I think, are somewhat relevant to the position to-day in the West Indies. The first reason was that, somehow or other, we had not succeeded in attracting the right type of local leadership, without which an experiment of this sort must inevitably fail. I discovered that as a foreigner—and I was such however well intentioned—I could do very little to help the people unless their own leaders were in it as well. We in this country, with our long tradition of public service, are apt to forget that in other parts of the world public service—even paid public service—does hot exist to anything like the same extent as it does here. There is not very much kudos, for example, in being a social worker, even a paid one. If you are a magistrate or a police officer, people take off their hats to you and you enjoy a position of great prestige, but that does not apply to anything like the same extent to a man who is trying to persuade you not to throw your rubbish into the street or to organise a co-operative society. We could not get the very best type of leadership into the co-operative movement.
The other reason was the lack of any great desire on the part of the people themselves for anything different. I could diagnose their situation for them. I could prove, or I thought I could prove, that by doing this, that and the other they could make more money and farm much better, but on their part the determination was certainly lacking. What brought

me upstanding was to overhear a conversation one day between two Malay peasants, one of whom had become a co-operator and the other had not. The man who had become a co-operator was using the same verb as though he had had to go to prison. He said, "I have been sentenced to become a co-operator." It was only then that I realised that I had made the cardinal mistake of pouring. Western wine into Eastern bottles. We only got a measure of success, as ultimately we did, when we started something more fundmental and began to build literally from the bottom. We can do a short-term job by the spending of money, but if we come down to the fundamentals-upon which national prosperity here and elsewhere depends, it must be a longer-term job than perhaps many people realise.
May I also draw on my own personal experience for one other matter in this Report? It concerns land Settlement. Sir Frank Stockdale has pointed out that land settlement has proved a costly business and, what is more, that many of the schemes in the West Indies have proved disappointing. I do not think there is anything strange in that conclusion to anybody who knows anything about land settlement. In the last 20 years there has been a great tendency here and elsewhere to believe we can solve many urban as well as rural problems, and above all urban unemployment, by dumping people on the land. The less people know about the land themselves, the more they want to dump others on it. In my experience there are three conditions without which land settlement will undoubtedly fail. The first one, to which Sir Frank Stockdale has referred, is that the Government should retain the ownership of the land themselves. If you do not, inevitably you get the problem of excessive fragmentation of holdings, as you have in India and now apparently in the West Indies. The second condition of success, in my experience, is there must be adequate training and supervision of the settlers. Just dumping these wretched people down and hoping for the best must inevitably lead to failure. The third factor in successful land settlement is a proper system of cooperative buying and selling. Call it joint buying and selling if you like as the word "co-operative" suggests that there should be some volition on their part as to whether they joined it. I would make it


a condition of tenancy. I would say, "I do not ask you to come here, but if you come here you must co-operate with other settlers." If there are any further schemes of land settlement in the West Indies—and I imagine there will be—I hope we shall not lose sight of these points.
There is one curious omission in the Report of Sir F. Stockdale. Probably it will come in a later one. It is when he talks about the development of secondary industries. He points out, rightly, that agriculture must always be the basis of West Indian economy, but he suggests that there is room for the development of secondary industries, especially in the overcrowded Islands like Barbadoes. There are two ways in which you can establish secondary industries. The first is the way with which we are familiar in this country and which we will call the factory system but that is not the only way. You can also develop secondary industries as we have seen in Japan and the South Indian States of Travancore and Mysore—secondary industries of the cottage industry type. You can even combine your secondary industries with a certain measure of agriculture, but you cannot have that unless you have cheap electric power. I wonder whether the Secretary of State can tell us to what extent the provision of cheap electric power is projected in his plans.
The great fundamental question of federation peeps out from time to time, even in this Report, which deals primarily with economics. The fact that we are dealing with comparatively small administrations must remain a permanent handicap to the economic prosperity of the West Indies. Unless we can get these islands together to a greater extent than is the case now, I do not think we can expect to improve materially the economic conditions in the West Indies. If the Colonial Office is waiting until federation comes about spontaneously, then it will never happen at all. History tells us that it is very seldom that people sit down in cold blood and decide to federate. This only happens either as the result of war or by the influence of some outside power. We have the power to-day and the responsibility to do something more in this direction than we have in the past. If we wait until there is a greater measure of self-government in these islands, as we hope there will be before long, it is inevitable

that vested interests and jealousies will start to develop in each island, and you will never have a Federation at all.
Before I finish I would like to discuss the position of the West Indies from a slightly different angle. We all here in this Committee must ask ourselves frankly this question: Why is it that this disgraceful state of affairs has happend; why have things been allowed to get as bad as they are? I feel that there is a danger that we may not go deep enough into these causes. We may tend to regard what has happened in the West Indies as an isolated phenomenon, instead of, as I believe, as the culmination of a series of defects in our Colonial policy as a whole. I am more and more convinced that the cause of what has happened there is to be found, not in the West Indies, but right here in London. If we try to isolate events in the West Indies, we may make the same mistake as we made in our home affairs before the war, when we set up the Special Areas Commission. The effect of that was to tinker with the symptoms instead of tackling the causes. I always felt the creation of the Special Areas Commission was a bad thing economically. It was certainly a bad thing psychologically, because it tended to create a sort of mendicant mentality and to discourage the qualities of self-respect and initiative without which, in the long run, a problem of this kind is insoluble. The only criticism I have against Sir Frank Stockdale's appointment is that it savours far too much of a sort of commissioner-ship for the special areas.
I feel that the Secretary of State has to-day three great tasks before him. If there is not to be a repetition of this sort of thing in the West Indies and elsewhere, the British Parliament and people will have to take more interest in the Colonial Empire than they have in the past. We must explain to our own people and to the world what the British Empire is and what it has done and the principles which underly its political and economic development. Where we ought to start is here in the House of Commons. For a long time past successive Secretaries of State have been pressed to form a joint select Parliamentary committee of Members of all parties from both Houses. All sorts of arguments have been put forward as to why it cannot be done. It was stated that it was premature, that it could not


take place while the war is on, and that in some mysterious way it would interfere with the constitutional responsibility of the Secretary of State to Parliament. All I can say about these arguments is that I am no more impressed by it now than I was when I first heard them. If the Colonial Office wants the support of this House, as it will in the difficult times after the war, it must cease to put a sort of ring fence around itself and must be prepared to get Members of all parties from both Houses interested in it to a greater extent than ever before.
I wonder whether the Secretary of State, perhaps not now but on some future occasion, can tell us what is being done to teach Colonial history and economics in the schools?

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): What schools is the hon. and gallant Member referring to? He cannot talk about the schools of this country in this Debate.

Captain Gammans: Then I will leave that point. Most of our economic troubles, not merely in the West Indies, but other parts of the Colonial Empire, have, in my opinion, arisen from one single cause, and that is that we have had no discernible economic policy. Each area has been allowed to develop on its own without much regard being paid to what is happening in the next Colony, let alone in the world at large. This has brought about two unfortunate results. One is that many Colonies are far too much dependent upon a single crop, such as sugar in the West Indies, cocoa in West Africa and rubber in Malaya. Also, in many Colonies we have not kept a proper balance between subsistence farming and the money crops. The result has been a series of booms and slumps over which the local people themselves have had no control. What is the remedy for all this? I suggest not a series of ad hoc measures for the West Indies, or anywhere else. The only real remedy is a proper Colonial Development Board. That has been urged several times even during the short period I have been in the House. I know that the Colonial Secretary will say that we have a Colonial Development Welfare Fund, which is an excellent thing and better than anything we have had before, but does not go far enough. It savours far too much of a purely relief organisation,

too much like a Special Areas Fund which can only be drawn upon when conditions are bad. We need to-day something far more positive and dynamic, with far more money behind it—a real central planning organisation for the Colonial Empire as a whole.
Recently the House has been discussing at great length the Beveridge Report. The far-reaching proposals of this Report have been supported by Members on all sides, by people throughout the country who do not need the benefits and who will probably never get them. I ask myself why this is. I think there is a curious reason. It is that many people look on the Report as a sort of symbol——

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. and gallant Member cannot use this Report as an illustration here, because it is apt to be very controversial.

Captain Gammans: I am hoping that we can have a Central Development Board in London with a definite policy and a plan, something with a wide comprehensive outlook which will restore the faith of our own people in British leadership. Perhaps the greatest responsibility which rests upon the Colonial Secretary to-day is in a much more intangible sphere than either politics or economics. It is to try to create a real sense of Empire citizenship among the many races who live in the Empire. I have never believed that in the finality we can hold the Empire together solely by economic bonds or agreements. If I wanted to make a criticism of our Colonial policy and of our past achievements, I do not think I would refer to the economic conditions in the West Indies or anywhere else. As my main criticism, I would say that we have failed to make the people of our Colonial Empire or for that matter, the common man in this country, feel that the Empire was really theirs, not in the narrow sense of a selfish possession, but in the sense of a joint heritage of which they were equally proud and in which they had equal responsibility.
I will not attempt to dilate on that particular theme. It touches policy at too many points. It means, for example, the complete abolition, in any sense, of the colour bar, the staffing of the Colonial Office by men of all races from the Empire and sharing the burden of responsibility for defence with the people of the Colonial Empire. It means all these


intangible things of the mind and of the spirit which will make the West Indian, the Nigerian, the Malay and the Ceylonese stand up and say with pride, "I am a British subject, and not a subject of the British." It is that something which will make them regard their connection with us not as a temporary status of inferiority which they want to get rid of at the earliest opportunity, but a permanent condition in which they as well as we will take equal pride. We are living between two ages. The old conception of the Empire has gone, and nothing has taken its place; it is to create a new conception of relationship between all these people which is the greatest task of the Secretary of State to-day. In conclusion, I would like to say this: My right hon. and gallant Friend has taken office at what is, I think, the most critical period of the British Colonial Empire. I would like to join with my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir L. Lyle) in expressing the hope that he will stop in the Colonial Office and that he will bring to bear on these great problems his high sense of public service, his practical idealism and his great achievements in many walks of life. Upon him during the next few years will depend the answer to this great question whether the British Colonial Empire will become but a treasured memory or the greatest international order of prosperity and happiness which the world has ever known.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: I am sure the Committee has listened with great interest to the hon. and gallant Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans), who, out of his experience, has dealt with penetrating wisdom with a number of the problems which we have to consider to-day. I join with him and my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley) in begging the Colonial Secretary to give further consideration to the question which has been repeatedly raised in both Houses of Parliament, the desirability of a Joint Committee of a consultative character which will permanently assist Parliament to keep in touch with the immense problems of the Colonial Empire. The fact that we have been able to consider the problems of the West Indies in two successive Sessions is rare in Parliamentary history. Often we have had to wait long months before any Colonial subject could be dealt with, and there is then never time enough for it to

be dealt with really adequately. If in the coming critical years we are to do our duty as a Parliament for those parts of the Empire which are not yet able fully to look after their own interests, we must have some such organisation as this. I am quite aware that it is a matter that the Colonial Office itself cannot deal with. It must be a matter for Cabinet decision, but I hope the Secretary of State will promise that this matter shall receive at no distant date the earnest consideration of the Government. I think that is the very least we should ask for, in view of the fact that it has been pleaded for in all quarters of the House and in both Houses of Parliament.
I would join, too, with all that has been said by way of tribute to the admirable work of Sir Frank Stockdale and his assistants. Anyone who has read his Report will feel that right through he has looked at the problems before him with great wisdom. The different suggestions he has made will, I think, command general approval, and our only regret must be that in some ways he has not been able to go as far as he would have liked simply because of the limitations of finance. I agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Hornsey that these problems cannot just be settled by Parliament voting money; they go far deeper than that. When the great Act of Emancipation was passed, to which the Colonial Secretary last month made allusion, some £20,000,000 was paid to the slave owners in compensation for the loss of their property, but no payment was made to the slaves.
Nothing was done for the ex-slaves, who were left dependent for a living upon the good will of their former owners. There is that root economic fact behind these tragic years and all the difficulties that have been involved. The Colonial Secretary regretted that the generous flame that had caused the passing of the Emancipation Act had burned itself out with the passage of that Act. But to say that is to misread history. A great number of the reformers who pressed for the emancipation were bitterly disappointed with the Act because it compensated the slave owners but did nothing for the slaves, and because it enacted a period of seven years' apprenticeship, which was virtually a prolongation for that period of slavery. Some of them devoted themselves to trying to get that wrong put right. An


ancestor of mine, with another older relative, went out to Jamaica and the West Indies in 1836 to inquire into the horrible conditions of apprenticeship. In some considerable measure as a result of the report which they made on their return in 1837, public opinion was so roused that apprenticeship was abolished in 1838, but although they were able to right that part of the wrong, the economic position of the ex-slaves was never put right. The result is that in our West Indian Colonies the vast mass of the population is landless and quite unable to become even tenant proprietors. It is that position which needs a fundamental economic remedy.
I quite agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Hornsey that it will not be remedied by an attempt to set up small freeholds, which would involve the danger, as he pointed out, of ultimate fragmentation of the holdings, and the danger that they would be pawned and lost to money-lenders. If there is to be a successful establishment of smallholdings, surely it must be, as the hon. and gallant Member suggested, by means of tenants working in co-operation with one another and with co-operative methods. Clearly, there will have to be some measure of State purchase of land to make that possible. Finance does not allow of that at present, or only allows very insufficiently for it, and the fact that Sir Frank Stockdale was able to give only two or three paragraphs in his Report to the whole of this vast subject makes it clear that he felt it was beyond the scope of the resources with which he was provided. I ask the Colonial Secretary to give us some assurance that the Government intend to go ahead with practical measures to deal with this problem. It can never be satisfactory that there should be such a large proportion of the population cut off from the land and some of them almost in a position of servitude. I think of the particular case of St. Kitts, where the whole of the labouring population is without any kind of landed property. There is a very limited number of land owners, and the labourers have their holdings at the good will of the owners of the big estates and are entirely dependent upon them for their work and their right to have their homes. That is not a satisfactory economic position and it cannot be defended.
Take the case of the very important Colony of Trinidad. It is greatly to be regretted that Sir Frank Stockdale's services could not have been made use of in advising on reforms in Trinidad. I do not think that the fact that Trinidad is comparatively wealthy on account of its oil resources is a good enough reason for not making use of Sir Frank's extremely valuable expert advice. I cannot help feeling that ii he had been able to extend his work to Trinidad, he might have recommended, on the question of land settlement, that a project which has been more than once spoken of in the House, the draining of the Caroni swamp, should be carried out. Plans were prepared some years ago and their carrying out would give the possibility of a much needed increase in the rice supply and would at the same time open up a considerable area for land settlement, which might be of very great value. I very much hope these points will be borne in mind by the Government.
It is not, however, simply economic change that is needed. We need to have the right educational spirit and outlook if reforms are to work. One of the most important sections of the Report is that which deals with education. The story is a pitiful one. We must feel humiliated to think that after more than 100 years of effort, the schools are so utterly inadequate; only 40 per cent. of the children get an elementary education, many of the school buildings are insanitary, many of the teachers are underpaid and the number of teachers utterly insufficient. How can we get a population able to fulfil its civic duties aright with an educational system of that sort? I think that many of Sir Frank Stockdale's recommendations are most valuable, although one can see the fearful limitations of finance. Sir Frank proposes that the number of teachers should be more than doubled, if we are to do the very minimum of what is necessary for the child population. Yet that will involve a total annual expenditure of £2,000,000. I should like to know how that expenditure is to be met. It will be a terrible burden. [AN HON. MEMBER: "By a subsidy."] It is not satisfactory that it should be met permanently by a subsidy. We must hope that some day this essential requirement of the people will be met from the resources of the West Indies themselves: There is,


however, one matter in connection with which we may rightly claim that the Development Fund should be generously used. The training of teachers is in the nature of capital expenditure. There is a great need for more money to be spent in training teachers; money spent on that now will bear its fruit in 20, 30 or more years of valuable service, and therefore, it may be legitimately regarded as capital expenditure in which we make up now, to some extent, for our failure in the past. Therefore I hope there will be a very generous expenditure of money in that direction.
The educational adviser who accompanied Sir Frank Stockdale put his finger on some weak places in the existing system. It is very sad that our West Indian fellow citizens should be labouring under the incubus of examinations far more than even we are here and that their educational system is a sort of narrow caricature of the worst systems of the 19th century. I hope one result of the Report will be that Sir Frank Stockdale's words will be taken to heart and that we shall throw off those shackles, liberating the minds of teachers and children from the incubus that has weighed on them in the past. It is a fine thing to see the rural central school, with a farm attached to it, being established, as it is now under these recommendations, and held up as a model. I want to see that further developed.
But there ought to be also a fuller development of higher education. It is very sad that in all the West Indian colonies there should be no fully adequate institution of a university or a University college character for carrying on higher education, and that those West Indians who want higher education have to go far over seas in order to get the opportunity of higher studies. It is true that in Barbados there is Codrington College, to which I may venture to refer, because it is affiliated to the University of Durham, but there are only some 30 students studying theology and the classics in that college. Apart from the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad and some technical institutions, there is nothing really adequate for the needs of higher education. There ought to be in Jamaica, at least in the near future, the beginning of a university college and some day a federal university of the West Indies. I hope that may be held out as

an object which we may look forward to being attained at no far distant date.
There are, also, some very good general remarks in the Report about the need for further adult education. It is pointed out that there is an opportunity through libraries, cinemas, and broadcasting, for adult education. The need for libraries, if they can be used in the proper way, may be very great, but a library, if it is not used in the right way, may be just a buried treasure. Broadcasting may be extremely good, the cinema may be used in educational ways, but these are all a form of passive education and do not bring out the activities of mind and character that are needed. There ought to be a vigorous attempt to have creative adult education, particularly in connection with the growth of the "4H" clubs whose members are pledged to the development of mind and head as well as of heart, health and hand; education by craft work at the rural centres, by music and choral singing, which surely would appeal to a great number of our West Indian fellow citizens, and by other activities of that kind. I hope also that there may be development along the lines of the Workers' Educational Association in this country. All these things are needed if the life of the people is to develop in the right way. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Hornsey that these questions cannot be dealt with simply by finance and by passing measures in Parliament. It is necessary to have the right economic foundation, but we cannot be satisfied simply with that. There must be a development of outlook and ideals. We must have a true sense of spiritual values and of the obligations of citizenship, which can only be the outcome of a right system of education. That is far more important than economic and political reform, valuable and needful as that is.

Mr. R. Morgan: I welcome this opportunity of taking part in the Debate, and although we have had some very interesting speeches, I shall make no apologies for following the hon. Gentleman and referring to the question of education in the West Indies. I am indebted to him for many points he has made which will shorten my speech considerably, because in the last Debate we had some very learned discourses about educational research, but if we are going


to establish a sort of educational pyramid like all pyramids it must stand on its base and not on its apex and therefore I want to say something about the basic system of education. I rather regret that I have not had the experience of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans), who has visited these parts, but I have every year reports from teachers' organisations from all parts of the West Indies, and I know something of their troubles and trials, and I think it is almost an axiomatic truth that if you are to have a happy and peaceful community in any of these Dominions or Colonies, one of the best ways to set about it is to have a contented teaching profession, an educated profession which will eventually bring about a contented people. I remember my right hon. and gallant Friend's predecessor saying that when he looked round at the different Colonies he was tempted to say with the Psalmist, "Yea, I have a goodly heritage." I thoroughly agree. We have a great Empire, and we are going to make it worthy of the name.
I rise particularly because of some complaints that I get from the teaching profession in the West Indies. I am going to give one excerpt which is typical of the troubles that seem to arise among these teachers' organisations. They seem to have no real court of appeal or place to which they may address their grievances, and they rather accuse, I will not say the present Secretary of State, but his predecessor perhaps. They say that when a case arises the local Government officials say this is a matter for Comptroller and vice versa. I am going to read this extract because I want the Secretary of State to say whether is is untrue. As a matter of fact, it is taken from a petition recently addressed to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. After professing their loyalty unswervingly to His Majesty and so on, they make this very bitter complaint:
It cannot be denied that the teachers are so badly underpaid that their lives are greatly impoverished. Many teachers while exercising the greatest economy find it impossible to meet their ordinary obligations such as maintaining themselves and their families in a manner befitting their status as community leaders and responsible citizens, providing for the proper care and upbringing of their children and ensuring adequate financial protection of themselves and their dependants against the time when they shall have retired from active service.
They go on to mention the salaries they

receive. I will give the figures for head teachers and leave the Committee to draw its own conclusions. Head teachers, Grade 1, £108 per annum, rising by £6 to £150, with a salary bar at £132. I think the bar is to account for the allowance of a house. Scale 2 is less, £76, rising by £3 to £100, with a salary bar of £85. Assistant teachers, £45, by £3 to £75, rising to the magnificent sum of £75 with a salary bar of £51. Grade 2A, £45, rising to £60, with a salary bar of——

Sir Percy Hurd: Is this a particular Colony?

The Deputy-Chairman: We cannot have two people talking.

Mr. Morgan: This particular Colony is Antigua. Grade 2, £36, rising by £3 to £60 per annum. These are very terrible figures. If you are going to have a discontented profession, you are not going to make much headway.
Now I want to come to the Stockdale Report itself. No one knows better than the Secretary of State the need and the proper grading for a proper educational service, here or anywhere else. We all remember his great services as President of the Board of Education, and now we are looking forward for a further display of his undoubted powers of administration and great ability in his new office. It seems to me that the Colonial Office have a man of vision in the educational adviser, Mr. Hammond. He very rightly points the way, but I am sure the Secretary of State himself must have felt very sad when he read the report on education. It is a truly humiliating document. It clearly shows in paragraph 248 that there is no misconception about what is required. But when you come to paragraph 250 you see that it is all a question of not now but later on—always to-morrow.
The main policy was submitted to the Secretary of State for advice. These recommendations have been with the Colonial Office for at least two years, if not more. I want to know how far they have been put into practical effect, or has no start been made with these plans? When I looked through the vast correspondent from these far off islands sent to me from time to time, I wondered whether they had exaggerated the case. As I look through this Report, however, and find the deplorable conditions of the school buildings and their inadequacy of


accommodation, and the fact that they cannot even get satisfactory sanitary arrangements in some places, it seems to me really alarming. It says in the Report that much of the West Indian education has been modelled on the conception of education in this country in the 19th century. It rather looks as though we are reviving a scheme already 100 years behind the times. I do not know whether that is a misreading of paragraph 251, but let me read a line or two of paragraph 252, which seems to me to give a complete answer to the complaints and grievances made by the teachers' organisation in different parts of the West Indies:
In the primary schools there is insufficient accommodation even for the children who attend them. The existing accommodation is, on the whole, in a very poor state of repair and the provision of water and sanitary conveniences at the schools is still inadequate.
These are not my words or the words of the organisations which have written to me. They are from the Stockdale Report itself.
Attendances at the schools are relatively poor, particularly at ages above 12.
Do I understand from paragraph 256 that there is a five years plan in contemplation for the service of education in different parts of the West Indies? If so, I shall be very pleased indeed to know that that is to be put in hand, but if I look further down the paragraph, it seems to me almost as though they had given up hope and resigned to a counsel of despair. Paragraph 256 says:
If it is not possible to look forward to the provision of the necessary number of adequately paid teachers upon a basis of classes of reasonable size, it will be necessary to explore other forms of school organisation.
One method later on is a proposal to revert to the old system of pupil teachers, which I am sure the Secretary of State would be the first to deplore. It would be going back to the old days when you put a child of 16 to do half-time teaching—perhaps in charge of a class of 60 children—and half-time instruction. I hope that policy will not be followed up in this case.
I do not believe that education is a cure for all things. I am hot a fanatic of that kind, but I am firmly convinced that a good system of education is a very good investment for any country or any Empire. It produces its own reward. Like the Secretary of State, I have been to many educational conferences, and so has

the hon. Member who spoke last, and I get rather weary of the subject of education. With regard to rural education in Somersetshire——

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member has just told us that he is tired of education. If he goes on about education in Somerset I shall get very tired of that education in a Colonial Debate.

Mr. Morgan: I am glad to have had the opportunity of putting these views before the Committee and wishing the Secretary of State God-speed in his great work.

Mr. Brooke: Through some of the speeches I have heard to-day there has run a strain of lamentation and pessimism which I do not share. It seems to me that if this House does its work properly and backs up the Secretary of State, we may be on the threshold of a new era of hope for the West Indies. I justify that statement because for the first time for years we in the House of Commons are really facing facts. This all dates from the decision of Mr. Chamberlain's Government to set up the Royal Commission, followed by the action of that Government in accepting its recommendations, of the present Government in carrying them through and passing the Act of 1940, and, last but not least, if I may strike a personal note, the act of the Prime Minister in appointing the present Secretary of State. We shall do neither ourselves nor the people of the West Indies any good service by looking on the dark side of everything. We are faced with a big task, and we have to grapple with it.
I want to speak about the fundamental economic problems involved in the rehabilitation of the West Indies. Nothing in Sir Frank Stockdale's Report has struck me more than the wise manner in which one of his advisers, Mr. Simey, has correctly summed up the relationship there should be between social welfare and good business sense. It comes out in paragraph 207 of the Report particularly, where Mr. Simey says:
Those who approach these problems from the angle of social welfare, including both Government and voluntary workers, should be prepared to meet the business world halfway and think in strictly practical terms of production and employment.
That is exactly right; the human side and the economic side are brought together. In some of the


speeches I have heard the social side, the humanitarian side, has been over-stressed; I will try and guard myself against the equal danger of over-stressing the purely economic side. One thing is perfectly clear—we cannot improve standards of social welfare in the West Indies except on a proper and sound economic foundation. It was my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Colonel Ponsonby) who spoke forcefully, in our last Debate, about the population position. That has been little mentioned to-day, but it is at the root of the whole West Indian situation. Ever since immigration into the United States from the West Indies came to an end 20 years or so ago, the population of the West Indies has been growing rapidly. Unless we forecast the future growth of population with accuracy and adapt our economic planning to it, we may be in the position of a man who runs what he thinks is a quarter-mile race and then finds that the tape has been moved back and to his mortification realises that he has to go half a mile instead of only a quarter. The population which any country can carry at a reasonable standard of living depends, above most other things, on the land. I hope that the Secretary of State will make clear how far it has been possible to go in carrying out the important recommendations of the Royal Commission on the subjects of soil conservation and soil erosion. There is some reference to this in the Stockdale Report. What is said in paragraph 129 of that Report gives me an uncomfortable feeling that real work on this primary matter has been postponed until after the war. If that is so, I fear we may be in a position of taking decisions about secondary matters before we have one of the primary matters settled.
I cannot address the Committee as an expert on sugar production, or even on sugar consumption, but we may be in danger of leading others into error if we pay too much attention to increasing the total production of sugar in the West Indies. I am not speaking of the productivity per acre; that is exceedingly important. But sheer increases in the total tonnage of sugar produced may and probably will redound rather to the benefit of world consumers than to the West Indian producer, for the reason that sugar is not a commodity in which there is any evidence

at present that demand is outrunning supply. Most important of all to the West Indies as a sugar producer is that world sugar agreements shall achieve a world price for sugar which is reasonably remunerative to the efficient producer. But we must guard against boosting the production of sugar in these islands, simply from a hope of increasing exports indefinitely.
In every country where land is scarce, it is a general economic rule that you must search for products which will give the highest possible yield and the largest possible labour requirement per acre. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Squadron-Leader Donner), in the excellent speech with which he opened this Debate, mentioned a number of industrial and semi-industrial projects which it might be possible to introduce into the West Indies. Although in some of these directions he was a little more hopeful than I could feel able to be, it is absolutely right that we should consider all the possibilities, even if we do not necessarily try them all. Industrial development in the West Indies, with the comparative scarcity of raw materials and minerals will certainly be difficult. Primarily we must search for labour-intensive crops, that is to say, for the development of every locally possible crop which requires for its cultivation a large amount of labour per acre of land employed. This seems to me the essential kind of economic study which is required at the very beginning of our policy—to study the labour needs per acre under different systems of cultivation, to study the relative productivity per head on estates and in mixed farming, and, at the root of it all, to study the birth rate and the prospective population. Only in this way can we lay a sound foundation for economic recovery. That is why it is disappointing that in the Report no contribution could have been included from Sir Frank Stockdale's economic advisor, Mr. Benham, who arrived in the West Indies only eight months ago. The importance of the economic research work with which he is charged seems to me so great, so vast and so urgent that he ought to receive every possible help in money and, above all, in staff, in order that his work may be carried out as rapidly, as thoroughly and as penetratingly as possible so as to provide a sure foundation


for the economic structure that has to be built upon it.
I wonder whether the Secretary of State will be able to tell us anything more about the future of the 1940 Act. We have received assurance that it is not ultra vires for the Governments or for Sir Frank Stockdale to submit proposals for expenditure which would run beyond 1951; but we must recognise that we can accept no terminal year in such an important undertaking as we are facing here. The sooner this Parliament makes up its mind that in Colonial development it has to frame its economic and financial plans not for four years or for eight years, but for 20 or 30 years at least, the better it will be for all in the West Indies.
Finally I would like to say a word about the proposal which has been mooted in this Debate, not for the first time, that some kind of body should be set up in England—I have heard it described today alternatively as a development board, an advisory board or a consultative committee. I am not greatly interested in the kind of machinery. The real shortcoming which I see—and it is not wholly our fault—is that in the House of Commons there are so few individual members who know the Colonies at first hand. In the 19th century this House was largely composed of people enjoying considerable leisure. Whether they used that leisure well or ill we need not discuss to-day. Many of them used it thoroughly well in the service of the State. My point is that it was easier in those days for the individual member, if he cared, to make himself acquainted with overseas territories under the British flag. In many respects that will be more difficult for him than ever after this war. But it will be easier in this respect, in that communications are improving and air travel will bring many places, especially outlying islands, nearer to Britain than they have ever been. It is not for us as Private Members to dictate to the Government on the question how our personal knowledge of the Colonial Empire might be improved and enhanced, but there should be joint thought between us and the Secretary of State on the plans that can be made when the war is over and travelling becomes easier, to make certain that every group of Colonies is in the ordinary way visited by six or eight Members of Parliament every year. In the case of the West Indies I wonder whether one

hon. Member has been there since my hon. Friend the present Financial Secretary to the Treasury visited them four years ago as a member of the Moyne Commission. The reason for that is war-time. It is hard enough just now for anybody to get to the West Indies, let alone hon. Members.

Earl Winterton: There is a point about this which it is in the public interest that my hon. Friend should answer. I think that he is wrong in assuming that in the 19th century more Members were personally conversant with the Colonies. It is all the other way about, and it should not go out that we in this House are less conversant with the Colonies than they were in the 19th century.

Mr. Brooke: I do not think there will be found to be any difference between me and the Noble Lord if he reads what I have said. I was arguing that the ordinary Member of Parliament in the 19th century had a degree of leisure and private means which enabled him to travel if he wished to do so. That will be more difficult after the war, for the ordinary Member acting as a unit. We have to consider how by collective action we can make certain that the growing knowledge of the West Indies of which this Debate to-day gives evidence, shall be developed until this House is as closely in touch with all Colonial territories as each of us aspires to be with his own constituency within this island.

Mr. John Dugdale: I should like to support the suggestion which has just been made that facilities might be granted for more visits to be paid to our Colonies, though I also agree strongly with the Noble Lord when he said that interest in our Colonies is now greater rather than less, and I think it is important that that should go forth. I should like also to refer for a moment to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke (Squadron-Leader Donner), which interested me very considerably. I cannot pretend that I can deal with its very wide ramifications, but in general it would seem that he made out the case that private enterprise in the West Indies had failed, and failed lamentably. It was a very interesting case, supported by very weighty evidence, and I would suggest that the Colonial Secretary might consider setting


up public corporations in each group of islands which would do the work of forming ancillary industries which private enterprise has apparently been unable to do up to now. As it has not been able to do this up to now, I think we may assume it will be unable to do it after the war.

Squadron-Leader Donner: I hoped I had made it plain that I thought State enterprise could do it, but that private enterprise could also do it provided conditions were created under which private enterprise would flourish.

Mr. Dugdale: There I entirely agree, but I think the hon. and gallant Member means provided there is an estimate of a probable profit of 15 or 20 or 30 per cent., and as I do not think that state of affairs will exist, as I do not want to see large profits made at the expense of the population, and as I do want to see conditions raised to the highest standard, I think these things would be better done by public corporations than by private enterprise. But that was not the main point on which I wished to say a few words. I want to deal with the question of trade union legislation. We have had three incidents during the past year or so which have been somewhat disquieting. We had riots in the Bahamas in June of last year, and there is in the Library a very interesting report on those riots. The thing that interested me most was that legislation dealing with trade unions in the Bahamas is based upon the laws of this country made between 1825 and 1859. It would seem that the alterations in trade union law made in this country as a result of the Taff Vale and Osborne judgments have not found any place in the trade union legislation of the Bahamas. It would seem that that particular group of islands has lived on in the past in that respect, disregarding what has happened in trade union affairs in other countries. I understand that it is possible there may be an alteration in the trade union law there as a result of this Report, and I hope it is so, and that we may get a statement from the Colonial Secretary upon what action it is proposed to take to carry out some of the recommendations of this particularly interesting Report.
I turn to Trinidad. In Trinidad there were riots and disturbances, again connected

with the right of people to organise themselves in groups to defend their wage standards and living conditions. I understand that in Trinidad, certainly until recently, there has been a rule by which ten persons holding a meeting without a permit from the Government were liable either to imprisonment or a fine. That has been altered recently and I understand that there is now a Trade Disputes Ordinance based on our laws, and that is a very great improvement. In spite of what anyone may think about the present Trade Disputes Act, that governs conditions in this country, it is-at least a great improvement on trade union legislation in the West Indies.
Thirdly, I turn to Jamaica. In Jamaica, again, there have been troubles based upon trade union activities. In November we found that four trade unionists were detained for what were called subversive activities. They have since been unconditionally released. We found the action of a railway union was declared to be illegal, and when questions were asked about that particular decision the Colonial Secretary made it plain that the decision had been taken without the approval of the authorities in the Colonial Office here and, indeed, as far as I can gather, without his approval, but on the authority, so I understand it, of the Governor of Jamaica. That ban has now been lifted as a result of pressure from this House. We all know the case of Mr. Dominica. He was arrested, I understand, before he had actually set foot in Jamaica, while he was actually on board ship. The only reason so far as I can understand why he was arrested was that he had gone there to organise trade union activity in Jamaica. I suggest that all these events are very disquieting. Let us suppose that before he became Minister of Labour the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour had been arrested, put into prison, kept there for some time until questions were asked about his arrest, and then released without any really genuine explanation of why he had been released, that it had been done simply because questions had been asked and pressure brought to bear to get him released. I think we should all consider that to be a very unfortunate state of affairs, and because it happens to occur in Jamaica instead of in this country it is none the less unfortunate.
I suggest that instead of waiting until questions are asked in this House and pressure is brought to bear we should have immediately a complete overhaul of trade union legislation not only in particular Colonies where there have been riots, because I admit that as a result of riots there has been some overhaul there, but in all the West Indian Colonies, so that those in which there have not been riots may be treated as well as those in which riots have occurred. It is unfortunate to wait until there are riots before taking action. I want to suggest, further, that a general law, if that be possible, or if it is not possible a number of different laws, be brought in in each of the Colonies to bring their trade union legislation up to the standard of the legislation which exists in this country. There are people who have some doubt as to what we are fighting for, there are many people who have different views as to what world we want to see after the war, but one thing upon which everyone is agreed is that we are fighting for individual liberty, and one of the liberties which is prized most highly is the liberty of individuals to organise in groups to further their own interests and to attain results which they could not attain if they acted singly. I would ask that those liberties which we prize, that particular liberty which we prize so highly in this country, should be given to the West Indies and given without delay.

Sir John Graham Kerr: I do not propose to take up time by comments on or criticisms of the Stockdale Report as a whole. I think the whole course of this Debate has demonstrated the general view that in this Report we have a document which is quite outstanding in interest, in excellence and in importance. My few remarks will be concerned with two items in the Report which might perhaps otherwise escape the attention which they deserve. The first of those items consists of a number of refences in the Report to a very great imperial institution which is located in the West Indies, namely, the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture. That college is primarily an institution of technical education in the products of tropical agriculture, the products that are derived from the vegetable world. Primarily it is engaged in teaching, and its admirable staff turns out a continuous stream of highly qualified persons with a special

knowledge of agriculture, but it is also a great centre of research into the most varied aspects of agriculture, forestry and so on. It deals with such matters as the development of particular crops, their propagation, their improvement, and their protection against various pests, animal and vegetable, that interfere with them. It deals, again, with researches into the methods of preserving food and the shipment of food. Finally, it fulfills another not conspicuous function which is of very great importance. The college possesses a tremendous reputation in the neighbouring countries of South America. Over and over again its assistance is appealed for and willingly given, and the missions which it has sent to Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador are helping towards building up friendly relations between the South American Republics and ourselves.
The other item in the Report to which I propose to refer is the short section headed "Fisheries." Most of us know that the sea is a great reservoir of food material which could be made use of by man but which even in our civilised European countries is quite inadequately tapped. It is still more inadequately tapped in the tropical seas. That applies particularly to the West Indies, and one of the most interesting points to some of us is the fact that Sir Frank Stockdale has set going a survey of West Indian fisheries, under the direction of one whom I know well to be a highly qualified expert. Some hon. Members must have noticed in that section of the Report the astonishing fact that in the Eastern group of the West Indian islands the main protein food material of the population consists of canned and salted fish imported from overseas. It is an astonishing fact, that out of the whole fish consumption of the inhabitants of those islands, less than half is locally caught. There, surely, is an indication of an extraordinarily valuable development which is foreshadowed by the Stockdale Report, to put right that state of affairs.
The object of my few remarks is simply to appeal to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman for his most sympathetic consideration and attention to the development of the West Indies along those two particular lines: the prosperity, development and extension of the Imperial College, which I should like to see developed into a full scale university, but if that is


not possible, at least to see it sprouting out as a great school of tropical medicine, because there you have a locality which is most eminently suited for such a purpose; and secondly, for the development of the local fisheries.

Mr. Emmott: The fundamental problems of these Colonies are economic. Indeed I think it is true to say that of the greater part of the Colonial Empire to-day the most important questions are not political but economic. There is too much politics in the world to-day, and the most intelligent part of the world is becoming thoroughly bored with politics. You have on the one hand incessant political activity, with new parties being formed and I know not what, and on the other hand a great weariness with the whole subject of politics. There is no doubt that the usual political topics are irrelevant to many of the problems which we have to consider. The problems which are of the greatest interest to the greater part of the modern world are concerned with practical life, and mainly with questions of production and distribution. In the West Indies, as this Report shows, the problems are the fertility of the land and its effect on productiveness, the necessity of the more intensive use of cultivable land, soil erosion, the neglect of food crops and animal husbandry, the drift from the country to the towns, and the pressure of population.
Those are the fundamental and most important problems of these Colonies, and the problems which most interest the world outside are similar ones. Sir Frank Stockdale recognises in his Report, that from these material things very important social and political consequences flow. He says in paragraph 125:
Public opinion is now awakening to the fact that soil erosion and the neglect of food crops and animal husbandry have resulted in social and economic problems of considerable magnitude.
Parliament and the country are much beholden to Sir Frank Stockdale for issuing this Report and thus concentrating the attention of Parliament and the people upon these questions. Is it too much to hope that we may have, without too long a delay, a similar report dealing with other parts of the Colonial Empire?
This is a very remarkable Report. One of the reasons, and by no means the only one, why I say that is that, whether Sir

Frank Stockdale is considering health, agriculture, labour, social welfare or education, he does not consider the needs of the Colonies under those heads as separate questions, but as various aspects of one whole subject, which is the well-being and welfare of the peoples of the Colonies. And, as he somewhere says,
Economics must be interpreted more in terms of welfare than of wealth.
I think that nothing is more striking in this remarkable Report than the unity in which the separate subjects are bound together. For example, there is a passage which is primarily concerned with education, and yet, as you read it, you find that it is as much concerned with agriculture and family life. This is in paragraph 259. It says:
The foundation of good education is not an elaborate school system. It is the conservation and right use of the means by which the people ultimately live, namely, the soil, and the conservation of the people themselves, by a stable home and stable family economy.
There is another passage which I should not like the Committee to forget, in paragraph 274, which deals with teachers. There he says:
If the teacher is to bring up good countrymen he must have the outlook of a good countryman himself.
Then he uses these very striking words:
Whether he works in the country or the town he must understand where the treasure of his country and his people lies.
What a fine sentence! That sentence alone would justify this Report. I commend those words not only to the people of the West Indian islands but to the people of the British Isles. So all important aspects of Colonial life are brought in this Report into a unity. And all rest ultimately upon one thing: the land. It is the land from which and upon which the people must get their living, make their life, and find their happiness. Sir Frank Stockdale says that the economic future of the West Indies rests with agriculture. Now it is necessary that agriculture should become more diversified, in order to avoid excessive dependance upon one export crop; but, as the Secretary of State himself pointed out on the occasion on which we last discussed the subject, we must not carry this process too far, or we shall drive down the standard of living of the people of the Colonies to an intolerably low level. What we have therefore to do is to avoid the two extremes of complete dependence upon one export crop, and complete dependence


upon subsistence farming, which would afford only an intolerably low standard of living to the people. Therefore the Report rightly stresses the importance of mixed farming.
But whatever may be done under this head, it remains true, in the words of the Report, that the standards of living of the West Indies are very largely dependent on one crop: sugar. I want to say a word or two upon this topic. I think we should examine with great care the possibility of new uses of sugar. There are here great possibilities. Science may show the way to extract from sugar products of the highest industrial importance. In Britain the basis of industry is coal. Coal tar is the origin of valuable products; it is the foundation of synthetic chemical industries, the importance of which is well known to this Committee. But sugar may well become, so eminent chemists advise me, the foundation of synthetic chemical industries no less important. What coal is to Britain sugar may become to the West Indies. At present this is only a possibility, but it is not something in the air, unrelated to reality. It is a possibility which there is good scientific reason to suppose will become a reality.
What is the key to this development? It is research. Research is bound to cost money. We must find that money. In my submission, the expenditure will justify itself. Research also is bound to take time. It will not bear fruit in a moment, or a few months or even a few years. Therefore we must have patience: but this is a reason for pressing on with it without delay. I lend my full support to what was said on this subject by the junior Member for Cambridge University (Professor A. V. Hill) in the previous Debate. The Colonial Products Research Council is now embarking on the investigation of new uses of sugar with energy and imagination. This Council and all other agencies of Colonial research deserve, I submit, our support and our encouragement, and I invite the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to take the opportunity to-day to give to this Committee an assurance of this encouragement. Further, I invite him to assure the Committee that he will stimulate his Department, if it needs it, and his colleagues, particularly the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if they need it, to appreciate the importance of research, and to take long,

statesmanlike, and generous views of this subject.
I should like to say a word upon something that does not lie in the future but is already present. That is a product known as food yeast. This is an interesting concentrate, rich in proteins and B vitamins, whatever they may be—the things which are found in meat, milk and eggs. Therefore, food yeast is highly nutritious. This product may improve the health and supply the insufficiencies of diet of the inhabitants of countries devastated by this war, after it has ended. It can be put on the market, I believe, at the price of about 6d. per lb., and the ration which an individual requires is only about half an ounce per day. This concentrate utilises molasses, so here we have a new use for sugar. During the period of experiment it has been manufactured by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. I understand that it is now proposed to manufacture this product in Jamaica. Is this so? If it is, is production likely to begin soon? Can the Secretary of State give us further information about it?
I turn to another subject. On 5th March, at Oxford, the Secretary of State made a speech upon the Colonial Empire of which, for the sake of greater accuracy, I have obtained a copy. On the last occasion when we debated this subject this speech made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman excited the disapproval of the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones). I am going to attempt to answer him to-day. He will quite understand that no personal animus inspires what I say, but the friendliest personal relations must not be allowed to constitute an obstacle to vigorous political opposition. This is an important subject. What did the hon. Member for Shipley say about the speech of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman? He said the right hon. Gentleman had "put over," as the hon. Member put it, the idea of Imperial exclusiveness in administration by using the words "sole responsibility." He then said—I quote textually:
I admit that directly he used those words he made it clear that he stood wholeheartedly for international co-operation or co-operation between the United Nations. I would urge that, much as it may be right that Britain should not and cannot transfer her administrative


responsibilities to an international syndicate, it is imperative that we should give evidence that we welcome third party interest and judgment, that we accept in colonial affairs the principle of accountability, that we are prepared to submit our stewardship to international authority to judge and that we welcome the fullest co-operation between the nations…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1943; col. 1094, Vol. 387.]
—and so on. Words, words. What do they mean? Well meaning, well sounding, vague and ambiguous phrases. Truly did a great Victorian statesman once say that nearly all political errors spring from the misuse of words.
The hon. Member talks of "accountability." accountability to whom? He says that we should welcome third-party interest and judgment. But the two things are utterly different. Does he not realise that those two things belong to two completely different categories of political thought? The Prime Minister referred on one occasion to the prospect of the affairs of Britain and the United States being much mixed up in the future, and welcomed that prospect. And so do I, but let the mixing up be in the sphere of external affairs and not among the ideas in our own minds. Interest, yes. The interest that leads to joint discussion and co-operation in practical measures. But the hon. Member talks of judgment. What does judgment imply? It implies authority over another. Then another is to be set in authority over us in these Colonies? Which nation is to be set in authority over us? Perhaps not one nation, because the hon. Member speaks of submitting our stewardship to international authority to judge. Then many? Worse still! Confusion worst confounded! However that nice question be decided, this fundamental one remains. If other nations are to be the judges of Britain, where is the sovereignty of those territories? Britain's sovereignty must surely be yielded up to Britain's judges: Britain's sovereignty is ended. Then his argument is really an argument for the disruption of the Colonial Empire. If he shrinks from this conclusion, and does not mean that British sovereignty should be ended, he must mean at least that it should be shared. This argument is for divided responsibility and divided authority. I find it difficult to imagine a method of government more vicious or more certain to result in inefficiency and maladministration. The kind of co-operation

to which the suggestions of the hon. Member for Shipley would lead is the wrong kind of co-operation. Indeed, it would be no co-operation at all. It would lead to jealousies and disputes and all kinds of difficulties. The right kind of co-operation is the co-operation which rests upon the sole responsibility of the British Government for British Colonies. On that sure foundation, and on that alone, can we build international co-operation, which will be expressed and practised by appropriate instruments.
Such an instrument of co-operation between Britain and the United States of America we have already in the Anglo-American Carribean Commission, to which no reference has been made to-day, but for referring to which I make no apology. I support with conviction and enthusiasm everything which tends to promote harmony between Britain and the United States. I hold that to achieve and preserve this harmony should be the first object of British policy. Agreement between Britain and America with me is not a mere conventional phrase, a decoration of Parliamentary speeches. To me, it is a principle of action, a principle of foreign policy. This Anglo-American Carribean Commission affords an example of this principle in action. In passing I would like to make one remark about the Rockefeller Foundation. I was glad to read the reference in the Report to the very valuable collaboration and help which is being received from the Foundation. As to the Commission, I rejoice in the evidences of fruitful co-operation between Britain and America to be found on many pages: co-operation in the medical field, in work on health, including the unhappily important subject of venereal disease, in research on sugar, fisheries, co-operation with American colleges, broadcasting, and other subjects. This is the way to work together, to begin from the lowest level, and to work towards practical, definite objectives. Here, in the words which the Secretary of State used on the last occasion, I believe, is a new technique of international co-operation. The success already achieved by this Commission is, I think, of good augury for the future. Within the limits of its work it is doing, and will do, great good. Outside those limits, is will have a most happy and beneficial effect on the relations between the two nations.

Dr. Haden Guest: I would like to ask a question of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman about the Report on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire for the year 1939, which was published in two volumes. Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman take steps to bring that Report to the notice of not only the general public but all members of this House? Having been published in 1939, it seems to have come at a very bad time, and to have fallen out of notice. Will he also consider the question of publishing an abbreviated form of this Report, somewhat similar to the abbreviated form of the Beveridge Report, which was published by His Majesty's Stationery Office? I found after the last Debate on Colonial affairs in this House, not long ago, that a number of members, some of the most distinguished scientific attainments, had never heard of the Report, because it was published in 1939. It is such an extremely valuable Report, full of evidence supplementing the Stock-dale Report, that I hope the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will pay attention to my question, and, if possible, that he will give an affirmative answer.

Mr. Sorensen: The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Emmott) started by saying that political controversy was unnecessary, at least, in the matter of Colonial affairs. He then proceeded to dive head foremost into acute political controversy. That being 50, I think we are entitled to stir the placid waters of this Debate with some amount of contention and disagreement. I would first state, perhaps irrelevantly, but not entirely so, that some Members of this House deprecate the intrusion into Colonial affairs of members of the Labour Party. I suppose it does not matter so much when my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley) intervenes, because he happens to have been to the West Indies, but more than one Member of this House has suggested in so many words that it is out of place and unseemly for those who have not actually visited some of these Colonial areas to ask questions or make observations about them. One Member, familiar to us all, somewhat vehemently asked yesterday what right we had to ask questions when we had not been to these Colonial areas. I am not much concerned with what she says. Her remarks do not matter the

proverbial twopennyworth of gin—even though I understand she condemns but never drinks it.

Sir Patrick Hannon: On a point of Order. I understand that we are discussing the Constitution of Jamaica and the condition of the West Indian islands. The hon. Gentleman seems to bring in all sorts of matters very remote from that.

Mr. Sorensen: The hon. Member who intervened knows well to whom I was alluding. He was one of the culprits. Unless you rule me out of Order, Major Milner, I am going to explain why I intervene when I have not been to these Colonial areas. It is precisely because other Members in this House do not want us to intervene. A second reason is that it does not necessarily follow that because the hon. Member opposite and others have been to these Colonies they know anything about the real human problems there. It depends upon what you look for when you go there, and by what criterion you interpret what you see. Some Members have gone primarily, if not exclusively, to find out how they can exploit the natural resources for business purposes, others for recreation and leisure, others to see what man-power or strategic resources are available. Others have gone there to find out what human needs exist, and how they can meet those human needs. It is true that these motives may intermingle. I am not suggesting that those who are interested in the human needs of those areas are confined to the Labour benches, but it is well for some Members to speak who have a democratic approach to these Colonial matters, even if they have not been there, rather than that the only people who should speak should be those who belong to the 19th, the 18th or the 17th century. Therefore, I make no apology for not having been to those areas. If it has been my misfortune, through lack of time and money, not to have been there, I may one day make up for that.
So far as the West Indies are concerned, we have a considerable amount of information available, both in official reports and in human records, from both white and coloured peoples. I am grateful to Sir Frank Stockdale for adding to that information, but I must express regret that we have not yet had the information divulged by the Royal Commission which


went out to the West Indies some time ago, made available to this House. We have, however, a certain volume of facts, and it is up to us who are interested in human liberties to interpret those facts democratically. I am glad that, after a succession of excellent Colonial Secretaries, another one has entered the procession. I would say, in addition, that I do not venture to congratulate or to compliment him too warmly, lest a few of his hon. Friends suspect him because of my congratulations. Nevertheless, I would say to him—and I appreciate his concern in this matter and also that his political outlook will not be on the same lines as my own—that I will do all in my power constructively to help him to carry on his great task. The question arises regarding the West Indies, and indeed all colonies, why should we bother about these places and peoples? Why should we concern ourselves with these teeming and swarming millions? What particular reason have we for going out there in order to try to lift up these people from the economic and social morass into which so many have fallen?
There are some who look upon our Colonial Empire as imperialistic. If the hon. Member for East Surrey does not mind my saying so, it is precisely that attitude which he has in regard to the Colonial Empire. He referred on one occasion to our Imperial Estate. Obviously, his chief concern here is merely that we should increase the number of Imperial bailiffs rather than that we should aim at the ultimate emancipation of the estate in order that the people themselves might govern their own lives and destinies. Here again there is a divergence between some of us in this Committee. There are those who argue that it is all very well to talk about democracy, but the main need of the Colonial peoples is not political but economic. I appreciate that point. On the other hand, if we are merely or primarily concerned with the economic development of these areas, then a very strong case can be made out for the type of supervision exercised by the Italians, the Germans, and the Japanese. Italian economic development in North Africa and Abyssinia was in some respects most remarkable. But the people were serfs. It is precisely because of that distinction that we on these benches allege that mere economic

development, without at the same time the realisation of the political dignity of these people, brings us spiritually no way further towards the fulfilment of the aspirations of these people. On the other hand, it is equally true that to establish a new democratic Constitution—as has been indicated in Jamaica—without linking it up with economic developments is indeed a betrayal of the democratic experiment itself. There are possibly great and serious dangers and difficulties regarding the extension of democracy in the West Indies or elsewhere. Someone touched on the biological problem, and although I do not subscribe to all that Malthus and others have promulgated, it is true that here as elsewhere in the world there is a danger of such a human fecundity existing in some parts of the world as to outstrip temporarily the means of subsistence.

Dr. Morgan: Never.

Mr. Sorensen: I said "danger temporarily," unless there is drastic economic development to meet the growing need. It is a controversial matter, and I do not want to divert myself from the main theme of my subject to-day. I mention it as a factor which must be considered. One of the difficulties which exists in the minds of many hon. Members on both sides of the Committee is the real apprehension that, if democracy in Europe has collapsed in many parts owing to lack of political interest, responsibility and training, is it not likely that democracy will in the end collapse in the West Indies, where we have a great mass of semi-literate people, who it is alleged provide very suitable material for deceptive demagogues? That may be so. If that be so, it is in fact a challenge not only to democracy in the West Indies, but indeed to democracy in the Western world as well. That is one reason why I am glad an experiment is being made, very much overdue, in Jamaica. I express the hope that not only will that experiment be backed up and have all the enthusiasm possible given to it, but also that the same principle be extended elsewhere in the West Indies, otherwise we shall find one little Island in which this experiment is taking place, whereas all the rest are assumed to be at a lower level and unsuitable for that experiment.
It should be realised that the concession of a new Constitution to Jamaica has


largely been given because of the indigenous agitation of the people themselves, and we should welcome it. There are many who frown upon it with a certain amount of misgiving and hostility. Will Members who do that appreciate that the agitation of a political character that we have seen in Jamaica and elsewhere has been a sign of human awakening and that, therefore, we should welcome it rather than deprecate it? Just as in this country our political expansion was preceded by considerable agitation, which we now appreciate, but did not do so then, so, also where these people in the West Indies set to work in their own way to interpret the political aims of their friends and colleagues they should be welcomed and not condemned as agitators merely disturbing the peace because of some ulterior motive. Therefore, I am glad that, having agitated, they have in some measure got their reward.
I could offer some criticism of the Jamaica Constitution, but that is not for me to do. I am glad to know that all the political parties in Jamaica have accepted the proposal. That being so, I must leave it until they decide that they want some improvements. It is not for us here to interfere unduly with what peoples elsewhere do. They have in their wisdom accepted the Constitution, and those of us who try to assist them have to wait until the West Indian islands feel that they want some further and more drastic development. What is required in the whole of the West Indies is that we should not merely give to Jamaica this experiment and leave it there. We have to have in the West Indies a counterpart of our own Beveridge plan in this country. The Stockdale Report is this in some measure, but it is not nearly enough. It falls short of one fundamental need. Although the social, educational, and economic proposals are excellent, they still fail to recognise that unless there is drastic economic development of a comprehensive character, on the one hand, the democratic experiment, and on the other hand, the social reforms, will be nullified. Reference is made to the great need of education. We are all agreed. One of the greatest weaknesses of democracy is lack of education, and that is what is required in the West Indies.
But, it will be urged, the plan of better education, whether juvenile or adult, cannot be afforded because economic resources are so sparse or this country cannot

afford indefinitely to hand out financial assistance. We should therefore draw up a plan for the development of the whole of the West Indies, based not merely on social reforms, but on fundamental economic development. I would like to see secondary industries initiated and owned by the Government. I would like to see proper comprehensive economic planning of all the agricultural, industrial and commercial resources of the Caribbean area with a view to public planning, public ownership and public initiative. I would like to see collective farming introduced in place of the rather piecemeal suggestions of peasant agriculture, however valuable that may be. I would like to see a co-operative movement stimulated by the people themselves, so that they can help to overcome some of their own difficulties in their own way.
I am sorry to say that up to now little has been said about the disparity between Jamaica and other West Indian islands, in particular, the Bahamas. We were all much troubled some time ago to receive news of riots in the Bahamas. Now we find that after investigation certain proposals are being made. What does that mean? It means that those riots appear to be justified and that if heads had not been broken, we would not now be considering how to fill stomachs. It is lamentable but obviously true that if there had not been this discontent and agitation in the Bahamas, we might still find ourselves to-day drifting on, unconcerned with the peoples of that land. Let some of my hon. Friends opposite think that over and realise that we owe a debt to these men for agitating——

Colonel Stanley: I know that the hon. Gentleman always tries to speak with a sense of responsibility, but he will, I am sure, realise that lives were lost in this rioting and that what he is saying may create the unfortunate opinion that we owe a debt to the men who were responsible for the murder of others and that the riots which led to the deaths of innocent people were justified.

Mr. Sorensen: I am very much obliged to the Colonial Secretary for asking me to be careful. I mean that in all sincerity, because I am the last one in the world to want to appear to endorse violence or to stir up unnecessary feelings.

Sir P. Hannon: Oh, dear, dear.

Mr. Sorensen: I do not know why the hon. Member should say that.

Sir P. Hannon: Then I will tell the hon. Member, if he will give way. The speeches made in this House by himself and one or two of his colleagues have given rise to a great deal of the disturbance, anarchy and bloodshed.

Mr. Riley: When the Colonial Secretary interposed just now, he described the two deaths in the Bahamas as being murders. They took place during the riots and were not deliberate murders. Does he still describe them as murders?

Colonel Stanley: I am afraid I do. When somebody kills somebody else in a riot, I describe that as murder.

Mr. Sorensen: After that brief, bright and brotherly interlude, I would like to say to the hon. Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) that it is entirely untrue that any words of mine have caused the death of anybody. On the contrary, I have not incited anybody. It is precisely the blind complacency such as is shown by the hon. Member that has been responsible for the disturbances we have had. It is a Pilatelike attitude to wash one's hands after having allowed people to get into a position where their emotions have been stirred up and have led to unfortunate, lamentable and tragic deeds. I earnestly apologise if anything I have said appears to be an incitement, because it was far from what I had in mind. I was trying to point out that if there had not been these disturbances, action would not have been taken. The only sense in which I used a perhaps unfortunate phrase was not to stir up violence but rather to attempt to stir up any stagnant minds of the people among whom these alleged agitators live. The same accusation has been made before against some of us who take a living interest in these matters. It was made against the Chartists, the trade unions and even those Liberal forefathers of the Liberal Party when they were striving for greater representation in this House. I want to make it quite clear that I deprecate with the utmost sincerity any employment of violence. I fully appreciate the inflammable material that exists in some parts of the world, but equally I am convinced that we cannot ignore these facts and that if we do not try to discriminate between tragic and lamentable violence on the one hand and genuine

political action on the other, but merely try to fuse the two together and condemn them we shall be rendering a great disservice to democracy. If my imperfect words have misled the Colonial Secretary or anyone else, I can only express my regret, because I hope no words of mine will ever lead anyone astray.
As regards the Bahamas, we have had a Report which reveals a lamentable set of circumstances. We find an outworn Constitution, no Income Tax, no funds available for the Colonial Welfare Act, no secret ballot, poverty and much else. I can only hope that the proposals now coming forward will adequately deal with that grave state of affairs. I would like to express my appreciation of the efforts of the Governor of the Bahamas, the Duke of Windsor. Unfortunately, his efforts have been frustrated, but I would like to congratulate him on the action he did take and the motives that preceded that action. I hope that the whole question of the development of the West Indies will not be left where it is, excellent as the political Constitution of Jamaica and the proposals of the Stockdale Report may be. We should have a comprehensive survey of the whole of the West Indies—a political and economic survey. We should welcome the new Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, because it suggests the development of a particular area according to its economic resources and not merely according to its political divisions. If we take that into consideration, I think we shall find that in a few years a federated and prosperous West Indies will gladly choose to remain associated with this country. I want that to happen, because I believe it will be better for the West Indies, but if we are to persuade the peoples of the West Indies that they freely ought to co-operate with us, we shall have to prove it is worth while to them and recognising in turn that they have been so worth while to us. The only way we can do that is to build up a civilisation worthy of their native resources, their destiny and their human fulfilment.

Major Sir Jocelyn Lucas: Before the hon. Member sits down, may I ask whether he is aware that four or five months ago the League of Coloured Peoples, in their news-letter, expressed the very strong hope that after the war the naval bases would be returned to the British Empire, because they preferred to remain inside the Empire?

Mr. Sorensen: I have never suggested that the Colonies should go out of the Empire. I have said definitely that I hope they will remain in the Empire. I want them to co-operate with us, because I think it is better for them as well as for us, but I think it must be their choice in the end, if not now.

Sir Patrick Hannon: I suggest to the hon. Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) that, notwithstanding all his sincerity, for which all of us give him full credit, he is not serving the cause of the Colonial Empire very helpfully in some of the speeches he makes. I have had an opportunity of seeing a good deal of the Colonial Empire, including the West Indies, and I feel that only those who have been in contact with the situation of affairs which arises in those Colonies from time to time can fully understand how inflammable the material is. I think that in our speeches here we should always consider that. Let me say now that I do not think all hon. Members appreciate adequately the debt we owe to the Colonial administrations in various Colonies. The Governors and the officials attached to them have been rendering, in most difficult times, services of incalculable value not only to the cause of Colonial development and expansion and the creation of economic stability and strength within the Empire, but to the maintenance of our high morality and prestige among all peoples whose aims are peace, understanding and good will. We ought to pay the greatest respect to our Colonial administrations. Nobody admires more than I do the sincerity of the hon. Member for West Leyton, but in listening to his speeches I always find in them that little touch of bitterness which can do so much harm throughout the Colonial Empire. Even the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Adams), for whom I entertain the greatest respect, sometimes makes statements, I am perfectly certain without malice aforethought on his part, which are not helpful——

Mr. Gallacher: If everybody were as well fed as the hon. Member is, things would be all right.

Sir P. Hannon: I am sure that Colonial administration will not derive much advantage from the interventions of the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), whose contributions have never been very

helpful to Colonial administration. The only appeal I make to the Committee is that, considering that the Governors and the staffs attached to them throughout the Colonial Empire, are faced with problems of great difficulty and delicacy from day to day, nothing should be said by hon. Members on either side that would make the administrative difficulties of these people more acute and embarrassing than they have been in the past. I would like to pay a tribute to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Colonial Secretary for the work he is doing for the Colonial Empire. Knowing something of the work that Sir Frank Stockdale has done in previous investigations and reports in relation to Colonial development, I am sure the Committee will be grateful to him for the Report he has prepared on the West Indies.
I was particularly gratified to hear one of my hon. Friends pleading for still further consideration for agriculture. I know that my right hon. and gallant Friend the Colonial Secretary has a very warm corner in his heart for the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, which is rendering services of immense value to tropical agriculture throughout the world, not merely in the West Indies but wherever research and scientific development can be turned to advantage. On the general question of Colonial administration, I am satisfied that hon. Members will always give their support to those who are charged with the very responsible task of dealing in many cases with primitive peoples and half-developed communities, where the introduction and furtherance of education and a steady rise in the standards of the people is a profound consideration to those who are charged with the administration. I congratulate the Colonial Secretary on his work, and I appeal to hon. Members opposite not to embarrass our Colonial administrations overseas by the speeches which they make.

Mr. David Adams: I will not follow the remarks of the hon. Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon), who seems to think that criticism from this side of the Committee should be either stifled or dull. Personally, I have been most careful never at any time to attempt to embarrass the Colonial Secretary; on the contrary, any information in my possession which I have felt might be of use to him I have been only too delighted to


pass on. I wish to thank the Colonial Secretary for this further opportunity of discussing the West Indies. The West Indies, however, is only one small part of the Colonial Empire. The demand for further knowledge of the Colonial Empire is rapidly increasing among hon. Members, and the demand is being made that there should be set up some Parliamentary committee, after the fashion and heart of the Colonial Secretary himself, in order that hon. Members may have greater opportunities of studying the problems that arise in connection with this great Colonial Empire.
While I am thankful for the Stockdale Report, which is comprehensive and mainly good, it is nevertheless discouraging and hesitant in many parts. Probably the Committee recognises, as we ought to do, that an area as depressed as the West Indies undoubtedly is cannot be restored by the small expenditure proposed of £8,000,000 or £10,000,000 in the course of the next eight or 10 years. When one considers that already only £250,000 has been expended in 1941–42 and that under the conditions the balance of approximately £1,750,000 cannot be expended, the situation certainly is not very satisfactory, and ought to be clarified. Sir Frank Stockdale has adumbrated some 120 schemes costing about £5,890,000, but no one can imagine that if these were carried into effect to-morrow they would have any appreciable effect on the situation in the West Indies. One knows that much greater sums are expended by other great Powers upon their Colonies than the Colonial Office propose to spend. It may be of interest to the Committee to know that the total of British Government loans in all the Colonies is £110,000,000 and that there is a private capital investment of £240,000,000 making a total of £350,000,000. But in Palestine Jewish investment actually amounts to one-third of that total of Colonial expenditure. In Palestine £20,000,000 has been given in free gifts and there has been private capital investment of £100,000,000, making a total of £120,000,000, or one-third of the total amount expended upon all our Colonies.

Mr. Astor: Surely the hon. Member will agree that his analogy is not correct. The money is not for the benefit of the old inhabitants but for immigrants.

Mr. Adams: I am not discussing the purpose to which the money is applied. I am giving an illustration of what is apparently urgently necessary in Palestine, the expenditure of this sum, being a third of the total amount which we think it necessary to expend on the whole Colonial Empire. With regard to the Jamaican Constitution, we cannot but be very grateful that this is on the high road to being completed. It has been long in coming, and it will find acceptance from all sections of the community. But is there any just reason why similar Constitutions, suitable to other sections of the West Indies, should not be brought to fruition at a relatively early period? If they are not ready and ripe for that change, there is something wrong in our administration and in our alleged partnership with these people.
In my judgment the question of land tenure is one of fundamental importance, to which the Stockdale Report certainly does not give the weight that should attach to it. There is no question of any further serious redistribution of land to be made available to the majority of the people in order to grow a substantial part of their foodstuffs. Otherwise, as at present, after a period of three or four months when the work on the plantations practically comes to an end there will be a restoration and continuance of the poverty that prevails among the sugar workers. We know that the Royal Commission of 1938–39 stressed the urgent need of extensive land settlement by compulsory purchase and credit facilities for the settlers, and, while the Stockdale Report certainly states that further land settlement is to be desired, nothing of a very practical character is set out. It cannot but be agreed that private land tenure in many directions has been a failure. Yet there is no reference that I can find to communal or State ownership or a proper redistribution of land holdings. There is a recommendation which has not, I think, been fully explained, and that is that long-term leases should be established whereby a hereditary class of tenant may be developed under proper guidance and control. How that is to be achieved or what it means I do not know, but the total amount suggested for land settlement is only some £16,000. How the position of the small man is to be improved unless you can bring him into


touch with the land I do not know. There is no reference, as there well might have been, to collective farming. There is a half-hearted reference to co-operative farming and better use of the land, but no particular schemes are put forward.
I should like to call attention particularly to Barbados, Antigua and St. Kitts, where peasant ownership is urgently required. A very unfortunate situation prevails on the sugar estates. Small areas have been allotted for housing, but, to obtain them, they must have employment at the hands of the planters, and I am credibly advised that they must accept the very hard terms offered or they will be turned out of their holdings and deprived of a livelihood. Two thousand acres have been granted to these estate labourers, but I am informed that they consist of most inferior land on the mountain sides, which is shared by some 7,500 estate labourers. Sir Frank proposes that an additional 20 acres should be bought, to extend the town of Basseterre, but that is not sufficient, and it will only affect the townspeople. It is too far away from the workers upon the sugar estates. There is no question that the bold policy ought to be the purchase of a sufficient area from each of these estates for housing and the growing of crops, making the sugar workers free and independent of the growers and of the landlordism that prevails at present. We are told that there should be some method of intensive mixed farming, but how you can have any development in that direction unless there is an intensive drive towards co-operation for the purchase of equipment and fertilisers has not been suggested.
I lament that the Colonial Office has been backward in the matter of housing. It is one of the greatest disabilities under which the people of the West Indies suffer. Everywhere there is a lamentable lack of decent houses. Slumdom is more common than proper housing, yet no plans are definitely adumbrated. We are told that they are still in a preliminary stage. We are informed that the appointment of an officer with an expert knowledge of housing and town planning to advise on these matters is under consideration by the Secretary of State. "Under consideration" at this time of day seems as though the Colonial Office has slumbered and slept.
The social welfare section of this Report is very gloomy reading. There is no

scheme of social security or for the reform of destitution. The lack of social security is a commonplace among the population, and some definite programme ought to be laid down. In reply to a question of mine, the Colonial Secretary stated that he had no proposals at the moment to submit on the lines of the Beveridge Report. I wonder why he has not proposals to submit. I wonder why the Colonial Office cannot take that broad outlook on the situation that it requires if we are to be the reformers we state we are and if we are emerging into a period in which over-lordship shall give place to partnership. There is no declaration of social advance to meet the needs of the West Indian peoples.
The question of education is not being dealt with in the comprehensive spirit which it requires. It is a shameful admission that 40 per cent. only of those eligible to attend school do attend, whatever the reason may be. There is a shortage of teachers for children between 5 and 15 of no fewer than 17,000, and we are advised that this lack is not likely to be made up in a reasonable time. We are told that nursery and infant schools are required, but that they are likely to be few because of expense. If expense is to stand in the way, illiteracy will prevail, and we shall have something which other nations look upon as being one of the prerequisites of reform so far as Colonial or similar people are concerned. We are told in the Report that it is important in the matter of school meals and milk that we must no pauperise the population. I thought that the theory about pauperisation in giving children reasonable supplies of foodstuffs to enable them to receive education had long since disappeared. Unless the Government are prepared to expend vastly greater sums upon education in the West Indies, we are failing to fulfil our obligations to these people.
Sugar is the mainstay of these islands, both economically and socially, and there should be stabilisation of price, guaranteeing fair conditions and wages to the labourers and a more adequate return to the growers. That has been suggested by Commission after Commission. It has also been suggested that to help the West Indies there should be a further increase in the quota to 120,000 tons. That will greatly improve the situation, but unless we recognise the idea of partnership in the matter of sugar in the West Indies in


the same way that recognition has been granted by this House to the sugar beet growers of this country, there will be no solution to the West Indian situation. We must be as generous to the West Indies in this matter as we have been to sugar beet growers in this country. I contend that the economic systems of these islands have not been viewed as a whole and that the potentialities for developing secondary industries, manufacturing, building material, processing of local products, exploitation of minerals, etc., seem to have been slurred over. There has been concentration on welfare rather than on the economic advance of the islands, which, in view of the magnitude of the problem, is the first interest. The reason for that is that the Economic Adviser came late to the Stockdale Committee and that Sir Frank Stockdale did not have the benefit of his advice for some three months afterwards. Perhaps we may be told whether there has been an urgent request for the establishment of secondary industries in Jamaica. The questions of cement production, paper making, expansion of the soap industry and rice processing in British Honduras have been under consideration for some years without any replies of an effective character being given to those who were prepared at their own charge to establish certain of these and other industries.
Is the Colonial Empire being farmed in the interests of British producers and exporters or not? If it is not, the lip service, which we are glad to have seen, which has been given to the establishment on proper lines of secondary industries should be translated into a reality. Unless we do that, the reliance which this Report puts on agricultural development virtually alone will leave us in the position that in 10 years' time, if we Debate this question again, we shall find a situation very similar to that which prevails at the present time. An entirely new outlook is required by the Colonial Office and the local Governors. I declare from the evidence, such as the treatment of the trade unionists and others, that the spirit of overlordship is still dominant on this side, that partnership and equality have not so far seriously emerged, that there is required a conscious drive by the Colonial Office and the Governors towards early self-government, full and unfettered industrial expansion, and, at whatever the cost, the raising

of the standard of life of the workers out of the morass of ignorance, poverty, ill-health and insecurity which now exists.

Captain Peter Macdonald: The wide range of this Debate and the general interest which has been shown in it fully justified me, I think, in asking that another day should be set aside to discuss the West Indies, and I want to thank the Secretary of State for supporting me and assisting in obtaining this additional day. In thanking him for his assistance I should also like to congratulate him on two other things. First I want to congratulate him on his acceptance of the Jamaica Constitution and of the principal recommendations of the Stockdale Report. The Jamaica Constitution is a step in the direction of carrying out the principles laid down in the Atlantic Charter. It is also an answer to those people who say that Britain is out to exploit her Colonies. As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said on the last occasion, the art of writing Constitutions is not mastered in a day; it is the spirit in which the Constitution is carried out in the country concerned that really matters. I am glad to see that there is a wide measure of support in Jamaica for this Constitution, and I hope the people there will accept it and put it into practice.
The Stockdale Report is a very comprehensive document. It covers a wide field, and the only criticism I have of it is that it does not cover a wider area. I regret that the Bahamas are left out of this Report, and in this connection I should like to know from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman what attitude he is going to adopt towards the Report of the Sir Alison Russell Commission which he has told us is in the Library. There are some important recommendations in that Report. The Bahamas require just as much attention as any other part of the West Indies or any other part of the Colonial Empire, and in spite of the fact that they are perhaps richer and are the hide-out of a great many millionaires who went there to escape Income Tax, I think the problems confronting that delightful part of the world are just as serious as those in Jamaica or any other part of the West Indies. They are within the hurricane belt, and the housing conditions are appalling, except in a few areas, and their social conditions call for as much attention as those in any part of the West Indies. I


hope the recommendations of this Commission will be implemented and that the Minister in his reply will give us some idea of the attitude he is taking.
What struck me most forcibly in reading the Stockdale Report was the similarity of the problems in each of the islands concerned. Nearly all those problems have been referred to to-day by different speakers. Agriculture is the chief problem, with soil erosion—and that ran through the whole Debate—and then there are education, broadcasting—of vital importance—the public health services, swamp reclamation, water supplies, housing, hospitals and trained personnel. Those are the chief subjects dealt with in the Report, and they concern practically every one of these islands. Communications are another vital matter. That subject is, I understand, being dealt with by the Caribbean Commission. I should like to know what steps are being taken now to provide aerodromes on these islands and to get air communication between them, and what steps are being taken to safeguard our interests in those islands as against those of Pan-American Airways.
Another thing that struck me is that the recommendations and schemes put forward in the Report, although admirable in themselves and absolutely essential, are only temporary palliatives, and constitute only a short-term policy, and that if the Report is implemented, as I hope it will be, immediately or as soon as possible, the whole of the £5,500,000 set aside for the Colonial Empire Development Fund for one year will be used up here without dealing with the rest of the Colonial Empire. As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself said on the last occasion, obviously he will require more money if he is to fulfil his duties as Colonial Secretary, and in his references to his problems he said that he would have to call upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to increase in some way the Exchequer grant.
I am going to make a suggestion, which is not a new one, because I have made it more than once before, on how to meet this situation. It is obvious that very large sums of money will be required in the future if we are to deal with the Colonial Empire as a whole, and it will not be done with the £5,500,000 a year of the Colonial Empire Development Fund. I would suggest that that £5,500,000 should be used as interest and sinking fund on a large

long-term loan. That would provide sufficient money to meet the whole of our Colonial problems. If that were done, I could see some hope for the future. Otherwise I see developing in other parts of the Empire a repetition of the position in the West Indies. It is already developing rapidly in some parts.

Sir P. Hannon: I am sure the hon. and gallant Member will bear in mind, in regard to his suggestion for a long-term loan, that as the process of development continues, the Colonies themselves will become self-supporting and that this capital expenditure will to some extent be repaid.

Captain Macdonald: I see nothing in the recommendations of the Stockdale Report which will make these West Indian Colonies self-supporting. The recommendations mostly concern social reforms and health services, which will be a recurring charge on the Exchequer, and unless and until secondary industries can be found and agriculture developed to such an extent as to enable these Colonies to be self-supporting—and that involves a very big "if"—I see no signs of their becoming self-sufficient. It is true that by grouping the Colonies, by federation, we may be able to meet that problem but, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, it has to be a gradual process.

Dr. Morgan: Why?

Captain Macdonald: In spite of what people have said, that matter cannot be rushed. You must have the urge from below.

Dr. Morgan: Is it not a fact that the people of the West Indies, the voteless people, through their elected representatives who have the franchise, have been asking for the federation of those islands for the last 50 years or longer?

Captain Macdonald: Some of them may have been, but the fact remains that it has not come about. One often finds that the poorer sections of a community are very anxious for federation, while the richer ones stand off from it, for obvious reasons. You have the same thing in Africa and in other places. It is understandable, but it is essential that we should have federation, and I hope that it will come about in time. Until then, I see no prospects of the islands being self-supporting


and I see a recurrence of the problems with which we are dealing to-day.
That brings me to the question of a long-term policy, which is absolutely essential if we are to have any continuity at all in our administration and policy for the Colonial Empire. Somebody asked to-day how this awful situation in the West Indies had come about. It has come about because we never had a long-term policy for the Colonial Empire. Nobody has ever looked far enough ahead. It has only been when we had a crisis of some kind that we have sent our Commissions to deal with them, and to deal piecemeal at that, as does this Report. Therefore, it is essential to have a long-term policy, so that the whole range of the Colonial Empire should be surveyed and so on, and that a policy should be laid down. I am going to refer again to something which I have mentioned on more than one occasion and have very strongly urged on the various Colonial Secretaries we have had in the last few years, and that is the setting-up of a Colonial Development Council or Board to review the whole field of Colonial development. It is time that the Colonial Office made a decision on this question and let the House have its views, because I know that my suggestion has very strong support in the country by people who understand the Colonial Empire.
I shall not take up any more time. I am very gratified that this Debate has taken place. I have always taken a great interest in the West Indies as well as in other Colonies, and, in visiting the West Indies, I have always been struck with the patriotism and loyalty of the West Indian people towards the British Crown. The people have the greatest pride in being under the British flag. That has been proved, if proof were necessary, by their attitude in this war and by the grants they have made to the Exchequer for assistance in the war effort, as well as by providing Spitfires and bomber squadrons and troops in large numbers for our Forces.
I wish to express regret, not for the first time, that some shortsighted C.I.G.S. at the War Office some years ago disbanded the West Indian Regiment. I regret it very much indeed, and I do hope that when the war is over that regiment

will be restored. The people took a great pride in it. They made excellent soldiers, and they took a pride in the fact that they were contributing towards their own defence. Just as the West African Rifles provide for the defence of that territory and are one of the best fighting units of the British Empire, so the West Indies were glad to have a regiment of their own. I hope also that it might be possible to provide the West Indies with a Spitfire or bomber squadron of their own, on a base there, as part of the defence of the Empire.
Another thing that has always struck me, and saddened me, on my visits to the West Indies has been the housing conditions there and the bad conditions of health. The Report of the Stockdale Commission goes some way to meet that situation, but a great deal of money and effort is required if the housing and social conditions of those islands are to be improved. I hope that no time will be lost in carrying out the recommendations of this Commission and that the recommendations will be put into operation as soon as possible, whatever the cost.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): I feel that I ought to apologise to the Committee. Owing to our procedure, and the hereditary principle which exercises such a limitation upon my Parliamentary Secretary, I have already had to address hon. Members twice on this subject, and if I now have to inflict myself upon them for a third time, I can only ask them to believe, in all sincerity, that it hurts me more than it hurts them.

Mr. Gallacher: We can take it.

Colonel Stanley: I am glad the hon. Gentleman is going to suffer and, I hope, suffer in silence. Most of this Debate has turned, as is natural, upon the Stockdale Report, and I think it is a very good pointer to the future of Colonial discussions in this House. My own view is that the really satisfactory Parliamentary discussion will always take place when hon. Members have had the opportunity before of study of documents which give them the facts and the background on which they can exercise their critical faculties and imagination, and which I think alone provides the proper basis for a reasoned discussion upon Colonial affairs. It is a


great misfortune that, owing to the pressure of war-time work upon Colonial administration, the ordinary annual reports have had to be stopped during war-time, but I certainly hope that we shall consider publishing after the war and making available to Members of the House of Commons the fullest reports upon all the Colonies. Only so, I believe, can Debate and discussion become really effective.
In my reply I, in turn, will devote myself largely to the Stockdale Report, but for that very reason I will try to clear out of the way first one subject which has been raised by nearly every hon. Member who has spoken and which has been outside the scope of the Report, and that is the present situation in the Bahamas. It is clear, from many references which have been made, that hon. Members are deeply interested and concerned about the situation there. We all remember the unfortunate occurrences of last summer and we all regret outbreaks of that character. Many hon. Members have seen in the Library of the House a copy of the Alison-Russell Report, upon those disturbances and, attached to it, the proposals of the Governor. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) for his generous tribute to the efforts of the Governor, which he continues to make, for the well-being of the people of those islands. The proposals I refer to are the measures which he intends to propose to the Legislature. I think hon. Members will agree that in those proposals he covers to a large extent the recommendations of the Alison-Russell Report. But, of course, the Committee will have fully in mind the position with regard to the Bahamas. They will remember that this is not a Crown Colony type of government, and it is the possessor, I think, of one of the oldest Constitutions in the British Empire outside this country, and that it is for the Legislature to decided what action is taken upon the proposals, which the Governor is sending down to them. I have every confidence that the Legislature will address themselves to these matters with a sincere desire to do what is best for the Colony, and that they will consider these proposals—proposals which I must say, to hon. Members used to affairs in this country, appear to be of the most reasonable kind—most carefully. Of one thing I am certain. It is that this House will

follow with very great interest the action which they do take upon these proposals, and that this House will join with me in the very earnest hope that they will, as I am sure they will, address themselves with care, with consideration, and with a modern outlook, to the proposals.

Dr. Morgan: What would the Colonial Office do if this high-franchised Legislative Assembly declined to accept the recommendations of the Governor, because I think that the Bahamas are not a Crown Colony? I have often asked, When is a Crown Colony not a Crown Colony? We appoint a Governor and have power to change these Constitutions.

Colonel Stanley: It could not be changed without an Imperial Act of Parliament, but I do not think it would be wise or profitable at the moment to jump the hedge before we come to it. I hope and believe, in fact, I am certain, that the Legislature will themselves recognise, as they do, their responsibility for the well-being of the islands, and will take, the necessary steps.
If I may turn to the more general topics which have been discussed to-day, it was, I think, a very interesting coincidence that the first three speeches gave between-them a very good prospectus of the sort of economic set-up and at the same time, by their emphasis each on a different aspect of the economic future, did show us some of the dangers. The hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke (Squadron-Leader Donner), who opened the Debate, in an extremely interesting speech, concentrated almost entirely on economic—I use the word in its more limited sense—development. I was rather frightened when he started, because I heard him talk about rapid industrialisation in the Colonies, and I was afraid he was going to give, both to the Colonies themselves and to the people of this country, what I believe to be quite a false view as to industrial potentialities in that area. This is an area which, as far as we know, is largely deficient in mineral resources, and geographically ill situated for world-wide markets, and it is idle to think that Colonies of that sort can ever hope to reach a state of industrialisation such as has been reached by countries more geographically and more geologically favoured.
But the hon. and gallant Gentleman went on in the rest of his speech to make clear what he had in mind, that in fact he had no idea of any extravagant industrialisation, but that what he wants to see, and what we all want to see, is the development of such secondary industries as can really be looked on as in the interests of the Colonies and in the interests of world trade as a whole. When we talk about setting up secondary industries in the Colonies, all of us want to steer, I think, a careful line between one extreme and the other, between a selfish policy to foster our own individual interests and trying to prevent secondary interests being developed in Colonial territories, and, on the other hand, a policy under which, by tariff barriers and excessive subsidies, wholly uneconomic secondary industries would be developed there to the detriment of world trade as a whole. To a limited degree there are in these West Indian areas opportunities for secondary industries, largely for those of such a character that the markets available in the colonies themselves for their products will carry them as an economic unit or else they must be related to, and dependent on the staple production of the Colonies which must always be the production of their agricultural produce. I think there is a big chance there for the processing type of industry which fits in well with the mainly agricultural conditions of the islands—[Interruption.] Complementary, as the hon. Member says.

Squadron-Leader Donner: Might I dispel one mistake? My reference to rapid industrialisation was in the tropical parts of the world, but not to the West Indies. The question was whether the West Indies would be allowed to participate.

Colonel Stanley: It is quite true, as I pointed out in the previous Debate we had, that owing to the absence of the Economic Adviser during the period covered by Sir Frank Stockdale's Report, this side of the picture has been painted in far less detail than the other side, and I am hopeful, as I told hon. Members before, that that difficulty will be remedied. It is obvious that any survey of the future of these Colonies which leaves out the industrial side of its economic prospects is lopsided and incomplete. The hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke was followed by the hon. Member for

Dewsbury (Mr. Riley), who put the whole of his emphasis on yet another side of the Colonies' economy. The subject he discussed most of all was the subject of the peasant proprietors, not proprietorship perhaps—[Interruption]—peasant agriculture. That again is right in itself, but can be wrong if we over-emphasise it, because he, I am sure, will realise that if we were to propose that the whole agricultural policy should be based upon peasant agriculture, which is largely production for their own consumption, and the elimination therefore of the cash crop for export, you will find, in Colonies which are deficient in any mineral resources of their own and limited therefore in the possibility of industrial development of their own, that the peasant producer would have nothing—although he might have crops on which he himself could subsist—to exchange for the industrial goods from elsewhere in the world. Therefore I think the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that, important as peasant agriculture is, important as secondary industries are, important, as the hon. Member for Bournemouth (Sir L. Lyle) then pointed out, the cash crop industries are, all three must be dovetailed into each other, because we cannot afford, in fact, to do without any of them.

Mr. Riley: While accepting the balance which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has just put, might I remind him that I said specifically that in addition to concentration more on peasant agriculture there should also be crops for export?

Colonel Stanley: I am sure the hon. Member will realise that when you are producing crops for export the peasant type of agriculture, the small unit of holding, may not be the appropriate or economic way in which to produce them.

Mr. Riley: It might be done co-operatively.

Colonel Stanley: I am sure the hon. Member has studied the Stockdale Report. He will see that this is the very point to which Sir Frank Stockdale himself referred. I have mentioned those because it stuck me as very interesting that the three speeches, if you put them together, covered very adequately the possibilities of the economic and agricultural development of these islands.
The hon. Member for Dewsbury also raised an extremely important point. He


called attention to what he described as the inadequacy of the finance in the Act of 1940. The point was taken up forcibly by other hon. Members. It is pretty plain to anybody who studies the Stockdale Report that if you are going to implement the Stockdale Report for the West Indies, and if in the other parts of the Empire you are going to find conditions not very dissimilar from those in the West Indies, which will want treatment not very dissimilar from the treatment needed in the West Indies, the £5,000,000 a year is going to be very much less than the sum which will be required. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already made it plain in public that among other claims upon the public purse after the war he is putting in the queue, so to speak, increased grants for Colonial development. When the time comes for that to be decided, I shall welcome the support of hon. Members in all parts of the House for this as one of the first demands which the people of this country have got to meet.
The hon. Member for Dewsbury also raised a point which was dealt with by several other speakers, the point of the Joint Parliamentary Committee. He produced in support of that proposal a speech by Sir Hubert Young, a distinguished ex-Governor. If I may say so without impertinence, I attach on a point of this kind much more importance to the opinions of the hon. Member himself and of other hon. Members who know the Parliamentary machine than to the opinion of ex-Governors, who, however able they may be at their particular job, know nothing at all of the machinery of the House of Commons. That particular suggestion, as the hon. Member himself agreed, would be quite impracticable. The whole of this demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee comes from a desire that Colonial affairs should be more fully ventilated in the Houses of Parliament than they have been in the past. With that I fully agree; but I should feel it a great confession of failure on the part of this House to adapt its machinery to new conditions if the only way in which we could get proper ventilation for Colonial affairs was a device such as the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
It means that once a year, or once a Parliament, a certain number of people

are appointed, I suppose through the usual channels, and from then on they, and they alone, are the people in the two Houses who are entitled to discuss—the hon. Member shakes his head, but let me say what I mean—and to take part in Debates on the Colonies, out of all the Members in the two Houses. The great value of the present system is that we do not limit ourselves to experts, or so-called experts, on particular affairs. Any Member, even if he has never joined in a Colonial Debate before—or even if he has never been to a Colony—can come in and express his point of view. Everybody in this House ultimately has to share the responsibility for the way the Colonies are governed, and we cannot get out of it by putting the responsibility on to a Joint Colonial Committee and saying that they are doing the job. After the war, when some consideration is given to the whole machinery of Parliament, I hope that we shall find ways of enabling the whole House to give more time than has been given up to now to discussing Colonial affairs, and that it will be possible to provide material upon which a proper discussion can be conducted. It is only in the last instance that we shall be able to look for salvation to a proposal of this kind, which I consider extremely retrograde.

Dr. Morgan: Why should the right hon. and gallant Gentleman consider that the establishment of a Parliamentary Committee, on the lines of the Select Committee on National Expediture, would debar ordinary Members from taking part in discussions? There is now a Select Committee on National Expenditure, yet when finance comes up every Member of the House is entitled to take part in the Debates. Why should he conceive that because a few Members, through the usual channels—and through the usual channels I should never get on to any of these Committees—are appointed to a Committee, that would necessarily prevent the ordinary Member from intervening in the discussion when Colonial affairs are considered? Surely there is something wrong. There are the two things——

Colonel Stanley: I am perfectly prepared to give way to anybody who wants to ask a question, but I would point out to the hon. Member that time is getting on. I do not think the analogy with the other Committee is a correct one. I do


not see that this Joint Committee of both Houses can be effective unless it is a very large one. The express purpose is that they are going to debate Colonial subjects. The other thing is that we cannot imagine that on Colonial topics we are always going to proceed as in these halcyon days of complete political unity between all parties. This other Committee is a Committee to discuss details on which no political division occurs. That is not going to happen with such a committee as is suggested. It has never happened—perhaps it would be a bad thing if it did happen—in regard to the Colonial Empire. This committee must become a House of Commons in microcosm, having the same discussion, and therefore duplicating it. For those reasons, I hope that we shall find some better way of allowing proper discussion on Colonial questions in the House of Commons.
The hon. Member for Bournemouth apologised for making a speech on a subject in which he was an interested party. I do not think he needed to make any apology. The whole House was extremely pleased to hear a man talk on a subject about which he knew a great deal, and especially a man who, as all of us know, in the few years in which he has been interested in those islands has done a very great deal, and has set a very good standard. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans) said, quite truly, that spending money was not everything. I tried to make that point in the Debate on the last occasion. However much money we spend on the sort of things that Sir Frank Stockdale proposes, we shall fail unless in the doing of it we enlist the support, the interest and the co-operation of the peoples of the Colonies. The mere fact of doing that is going to be more important to the future of the Colonies than any material good that the money itself is going to bring.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman also raised, as did several others, including my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald), the question of what is described as—everybody using a different form of words—the Colonial development board, the economic advisory council, whatever it may be. I sympathise with the great interest shown on that point, because I am conscious that, under the present system of Advisory Committees which we have at

the Colonial Office, there is a gap upon this economic side. I do not want at the moment to say that I accept this or that plan, because not everybody in certain of the implications of the particular schemes which are put forward. I hope before long to be able to complete detailed consideration, but I san say that I accept in principle the need we have at the Colonial Office for some machinery by which I can get economic advice on the big principles of economic development, and that I am engaged at the present moment in thinking out the best ways and means of securing that.
Hon. Members, I am sure, will excuse me if I do not deal with every point which has been raised. I do not think I need answer the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale), who is not now in his place, except to say that he gave a wholly false picture as to the question of the detentions in Jamaica. I entirely agree with the desirability of the trades union legislation to which he refers. Nearly all the Colonies now have it, and, as hon. Members know, the Colonial Welfare and Development Act laid down that a proper standard of trades union legislation is a necessity for the receipt of assistance under the Act, if that assistance involves the employment of labour. But it is untrue to say that the questions of internment in Jamaica are affected in any way by trades union legislation or deal with proper trades union activities at all any more than that the exercise by the Home Secretary of his powers under 18B in this country is affected by the code of trades union lesgislation that we have got. Those detentions were effected for security reasons. They were not withdrawn because of pressure from the House. It is quite unfair to suggest this. They were imposed because it was believed at the time is was necessary; they were withdrawn as soon, and as rapidly, as they were believed no longer to be necessary.
The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Emmott) dealt some shrewd blows on my behalf and received very shrewd blows in return, which I hope he will not pass on to me. [Interruption.] That shows that by hon. Friend is impervious to rhetorical injury. He raised two points. First of all, with regard to the Colonial Products and Research Committee—and I am very glad that he called attention to the work of that Committee; it is an extremely important


Committee—he asked whether I could give him an assurance that I am going to encourage it. My hon. Friend will remember that I set it up, and therefore it is probably not likely at any rate that I am going to discourage it. I believe that it can be of very great assistance indeed. Its twin task is to discover new uses for old products or new products for old uses. He asked a question about food yeast, that mysterious substance which he described so well, and in a way which made one think of a good Parliamentary speech, as "concentrated and full of good stuff," although he did not know of what the good stuff consisted. He asked, is it proposed to make that in Jamaica? Yes, we do hope to make it in Jamaica. As to the wider questions he elaborated, specially that of international co-operation, he will I am sure excuse me at this late hour if, in this rather detailed speech, I do not follow him.
The hon. Member for North Islington (Dr. Haden Guest) asked a question about the Report on Colonial Nutrition. The mere fact that he got up in his place and referred to it will have got it all the advertisement it either needs or desires. I do not think that I could consider issuing an abbreviated form of the Report. It is a responsibility I should not like to undertake, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, by the reference in the OFFICIAL REPORT, will have done much to stimulate interest in what, I am sure, is a most admirable document.

Mr. Harvey: Would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman deal with the question of education, which was also raised in two other speeches?

Colonel Stanley: I am very sorry. I must confess that owing to a weak moment I surrendered to the calls of the inner man and missed the hon. Gentleman's speech. Although I know that in general terms he referred to education, I was not certain of the particular points he raised. I will study them in the OFFICIAL REPORT and let him know the answers where they call for reply. Education has teen raised, and hon. Members who listened to the last Debate will remember that I dealt with it at considerable length then. I do not think I can add anything more to it to-day. The hon. Member for Stourbridge (Mr. R. Morgan), I think, was mistaken in thinking that because of something in the Report which said that education in the past had

been on a nineteenth century basis, it meant that Sir Frank Stockdale was recommending that we should continue on that nineteenth century basis. I tried to point out that it was exactly the necessity for getting away from that basis and achieving some novel action which was the chief difficulty, and also that to apply the standard of the N.U.T., the Board of Education and of the many conferences to which I have been in this country to the question of pupil teachers in the West Indies was really to overlook the real point. We are faced in the West Indies now with the problem of mass illiteracy. We have to deal with it as quickly as we can and by any means we can. It is far better for children in Jamaica to be able to go into school and be taught even by a pupil teacher than not to go to school at all. If they had to wait until teachers were trained up to our standards, they would by that time have passed school age, and you might not get them back again, and they would remain illiterates for good. We shall make a great mistake if we try to tackle the problem of education in the West Indies entirely on the lines on which we approach educational problems in this country.

Dr. Morgan: We cannot be doctrinaire.

Colonel Stanley: We cannot be doctrinaire, but the urgency of even scratching the surface is so great that we have to be prepared to do things in the interim period that we do riot believe to be permanent and orthodox education. I do not think there are any other particular points to which I need refer. There is one particular point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight. He talked about a big loan. I have no objection to what is proper in the social or economic development of the Colonies being done by way of loan as opposed to payment on current account. Technically there is nothing in the Colonial Welfare and Development Act to prevent money being given under it to a Colony to provide the interest on a loan which they want to raise for some particular purpose. My hon. and gallant Friend, if he looks at what we are actually discussing in Sir Frank Stockdale's, Report, will agree that a good deal of what is proposed to do there is not really suitable for long-term expenditure. It is something that we ought to face as current and recurring expenditure.

Captain P. Macdonald: What impressed me most in this Report was the fact that this was a short-term policy and only a palliative.

Colonel Stanley: I am not at all in principle opposed to loans in their proper place; they may be extremely useful although I do not think we ought to go in for them as a matter of principle but rather as a matter of expediency. I am sure that all who have taken some part in the efforts to secure from half-hearted and over-pressed Whips the additional time for our discussion on this subject will agree that it has been fully justified. I only hope that we shall have a further opportunity during the course of the Session for a discussion which will be equally interesting and equally reasoned upon the problem of the Colonial Empire as a whole.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again," [Captain McEwen] put, and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

NATIONAL LOANS BILL

Read a Second time; Committed to a Committee of the Whole House and immediately considered in Committee, pursuant to the Order of the House this day: reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

EVIDENCE AND POWERS OF ATTORNEY BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
I will not detain the House long, but I should perhaps explain that the main purpose of this Bill is to extend the facilities for the taking of oaths and the swearing of affidavits of British subjects abroad. Earlier in the war an Act was passed enabling my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor to authorise officers in the three Services to act as Commissioners for Oaths. At that time the U.S.A. were the Protecting Power and their diplomatic and consular representatives were enabled to fulfil these functions. Now that Switzerland

is the Protecting Power there are difficulties, arising out of Swiss law, as to their representatives doing this and the result is that there are prisoner of war and internment camps in which there are at present no facilities for the swearing of affidavits, the taking of oaths, powers of attorney, and so on.
Clause 1 of this Bill would enable the Lord Chancellor to authorise proper persons—camp leaders, officials and so on—to perform these functions. The other part of the Bill deals with matters which have arisen in connection with the same subject. Clause 2 enables airgraph photographic copies of powers of attorney to be filed in the registry where these things have to be filed. Clause 3 makes it clear that if, in connection with this procedure, people commit perjury or forgery outside the United Kingdom that can be dealt with as a crime as if it had been committed here. That is the general purport of the Bill: I think it is quite uncontroversial and I hope it will commend itself to the House.

Dr. Russell Thomas: I will not keep the House for more than a few minutes but I want to put one or two points to the right hon. and learned Attorney-General about this Bill. I am sure the House welcomes it as an extremely valuable Measure which will have the effect of easing proceedings in many different matters. The Bill gives power to the Lord Chancellor to make orders to extend the powers of taking an affidavit to master mariners, camp leaders, non-commissioned officers, privates and so on in both prisoner of war and internment camps. The Attorney-General told us that the U.S.A. was formerly the Protecting Power and that the Swiss Government have not been able to act in that capacity owing to certain difficulties which need hardly be gone into now. I am sure we are all grateful to the U.S.A. Government for the functions they fulfilled up to the time they came into the war. I would, however, like to put this point to my right hon. and learned Friend. The U.S. Government came into the war 18 months ago and ceased to be the Protecting Power at that time. Since then, the number of prisoners of war must have increased very considerably. I do not want to bring up any mishaps of war which have been inevitable—we are bound to have setbacks—but since America came


into the war we must remember that a large number of naval ratings and merchant seamen have been made prisoners through mishaps at sea, that we have lost prisoners in land battles in Africa, that British civilians in Hong Kong. Shanghai and Malaya have been interned and many of them transferred to Japan and that we have lost a large number of men, as prisoners, as the result of the fighting in Malaya, Singapore, Burma and other places. All that has happened since America ceased to be the Protecting Power. The object of the Bill is to facilitate matters for internees and prisoners of war who have connections with people at home in a business way, and also in matters of debt, divorce and so on.
I cannot but feel, however, that during the last 18 months a good many complications must have take place at home. Indeed, perhaps, it is an accumulation of these complications which has led to the present Bill—of course, I do not know. I would like the Attorney-General to tell me whether there is not, possibly, some way of meeting the difficulties which may of necessity have arisen during those 18 months. I welcome this Measure and congratulate the Government upon it, but I am sure that it has come not a moment too soon. Many cases must have arisen for lack of such a procedure as is now being enacted, and probably these have caused considerable hardship and injustice to those concerned—of course, the physical difficulties in connection with this matter are quite clear. I want to put a question to the Attorney-General, and I do so very carefully, because I know it is no good asking him in loose language to make a Bill of this sort retrospective, and so on. I put this question to him: cannot something be done to see that this Bill is made retrospective in the cases where perfectly proper action has been taken, but, on account of technicalities, the remedy has been refused? I hope my right hon. and learned Friend will consider the point although I can well see the difficulties with which he is faced.

Mr. Mathers: Will the Attorney-General make clear the position of Scotland in relation to this Bill? There is a reference to Scotland in Clause 3 and there are references throughout the Bill to the United Kingdom, but in the operative Clause the power seems to be vested

entirely in the Lord Chancellor. It is because of this that I would like to give to the fight hon. and learned Gentleman the opportunity to make clear the relationship of Scotland to the Bill. Normally the Lord Chancellor does not have, in usual legal matters, any writ running in Scotland. He has certain authority in respect of the appointment of justices of the peace, but apart from that, in ordinary legal matters, we rely upon our own Scottish legal system except in cases of very high moment in which there can be an appeal to the House of Lords, where the Lord Chancellor has supreme authority in respect of the law.

The Attorney-General: I can speak again only by leave of the House. With regard to the remarks of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers), I do not think there is a concealed affront to Scotland in this Bill. Clauses 2, 3 and 4 make certain alterations in the general law, and there is no reference to the Lord Chancellor there. It is quite true that under Clause 1 the persons in these camps and places abroad who will be authorised to act as Commissioners for Oaths will be selected and nominated by the Lord Chancellor and under the Lord Chancellor's orders. That is not really impinging upon any question of Scottish law, and it has, of course, been agreed to by the Scottish authorities, and I think probably there are precedents for it. It is simply a question of nominating persons outside this country who can be authorised under this Bill to perform these functions.
As to the remarks of the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Russell Thomas), it is, as he said, 18 months since the United States ceased to be the Protecting Power. I do not think that in the gap which this Bill fills up there are likely to be many cases covered by it; but there will be some, and it is important they should be covered, with this exception, that there may be a very considerable number in the Far East. As far as they are concerned, as everybody knows, communication of any kind has been extremely difficult with civilians who have been interned in the Far East, and indeed I think that no really reliable lists have yet come through. Therefore, although no doubt difficulties may well have arisen, as indeed I know they have, with regard to persons in the Far East who had property, and so on, in this Country, and


earlier passage of this Bill would not really have helped the situation, because communications of all kinds have been very difficult.
My hon. Friend asked me whether this Bill could be made in any way retrospective, although I know he did not put it quite in that way. Obviously, that cannot be done. The Bill says that a certain new category of persons can be authorised to take an affidavit or a power of attorney before them. My hon. Friend agrees with that, but he asks about the difficulties that have arisen. In regard to that matter, it is, of course, impossible to make any general statement. If my hon. Friend has any case of difficulty, I shall be glad to look into it. It is not at all an easy problem. The earlier Act was passed to facilitate the swearing of affidavits abroad, and the Services Departments—this does not cover the Far Eastern people—do see that officers and men who are going overseas, and who may have property and affairs here that may require to be dealt with, have the importance of exercising a power of attorney brought to their notice before they go. Thus, one hopes that the people who leave this country will leave behind them someone authorised to deal with their affairs.
With regard to the people in the Far East, I have had one or two cases brought to my attention and there may have been many others which have not been brought to my attention, but on the whole I have no doubt that it is one of those matters in which everybody concerned appreciates the difficulties and does his best to tide over the interim period. The matter is an extremely difficult one to deal with by legislation. It is very difficult to authorise somebody here to deal with somebody else's property, and it may put him in a very difficult and unfair position. All I can say about the difficulties that may have arisen through the absence of a proper authority here is that we are very ready to look into any points that are put to us. Some steps have been taken administratively, or suggestions made, which have helped. Certainly, I will not undertake to say that there is a ready-made simple legislative solution of the problem, but if cases are put to us and there is anything that can be done to help, we shall be very ready to consider it.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting Day.—[Captain McEwen.]

COURTS (EMERGENCY POWERS) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Attorney-General: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
During the passage of the War-time Liabilities Adjustment Bill I gave a pledge to the House that the Courts (Emergency Powers) legislation, which by that time was scattered up and down, I think, five Acts, would be consolidated in one Act. This is the result. It has been before a Committee, and it has been certified as what is called pure consolidation, and I do not think it needs words of mine to commend it to the House.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for the next Sitting Day.—[Captain McEwen.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

MAGAZINES (DISTRIBUTION TO TROOPS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain McEwen.]

Mr. A. Edwards: I gave notice some time ago to the Secretary of State for War that I would raise the question of certain publications distributed by the War Office to His Majesty's Forces. This matter arises out of a certain Question that I had on the Order Paper as far back as December. There are three publications, as far as I know, available for the Forces. One is called "United Services Review," the other is "Blighty" and the third "Reveille." The "United Services Review" and "Blighty" are distributed freely by the War Office. I am not sure that they are available for sale;


but, if they are, it is in very small numbers. "Reveille" is exclusively sold by the publishers and has, I understand, a circulation of about 20,000, sold on the bookstalls to the public. The War Office, for some reason, refuses to distribute it on the same basis that it distributes the other two. I raise no complaints whatever about the quality of these papers, or even the distribution of them. They are, to the best of my knowledge, good publications each in its particular way. The "United Services Review" has had contributions from Members of this House, which is a testimony to its quality and standing. My objection was based on information given to me by certain people who had been induced to place advertisements with the "United Services Review" and "Blighty," and it is to those two that I wish to apply my remarks from now on. I could not do better, perhaps, than read a few extracts from letters which have come to me from very substantial business concerns since the question was raised in the House. The Minister seemed to doubt the information that I gave on my own authority, and I thought he might like to have it confirmed by substantial business houses. I do not want to mention the names of the firms, but they are at his disposal afterwards if it is of any interest to him. This is from the first company:
The statement you make that the income brought from advertisements is fabulous is in no way an exaggerated statement. The circulation of this publication is in the vicinity of 4,000 copies per issue. It was once a monthly issue, but is now a weekly issue. I should reckon that a publication of this nature, issued in the quantity mentioned, should not involve a total cost of more than £100 to £120. In a recent issue the revenue from advertising is in the vicinity of £2,000. If this figure is maintained weekly you will see that the publication has a revenue of £100,000 a year. 'Review Publications' have advertised recently in the 'Daily Telegraph' for ex-officers to work on this publication, offering as an inducement that up to £1,000 a year could be made. The distinguished officer who called on us had an introduction from the Ministry of Supply who, in my judgment should not have given this introduction, especially since we have large contracts with the Ministry and we were naturally more than sympathetic. In addition to this, 'Review Publications' wished us to pay for the six advertisements on the issue of our first advertisement.
He concludes by saying:
Trusting that when you raise the matter again in the House you may get a more satisfactory answer from the Ministry of War.

It is for that purpose that I raise the matter, in the hope that I may get a more satisfactory answer. Here is a letter written by "United Services Review" to me after the question was raised. I want to call attention to the official names which are published here, which might lead people to suppose that it is a very reliable concern and give the impression, when canvassers get advertisements, that the profits from the publication are going to the benefit of the Forces. They are influenced considerably by these names on the letter paper. The first is "Services Advisory Committee, Admiral of the Fleet the Earl of Cork, Field Marshal Lord Ironside, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Salmond." There is a list of an Executive Committee, all officers of the Forces, and all adding weight to the plea of the advertisement canvasser. The next letter is from one of our big industrial manufacturers' unions. There are Members of the House on the Executive Committee, mostly on the other side.
Your Question in the House of Commons on December 15 caused interest among members here whose advertisements appear in that journal. I am told that a Noble Lord is interested in obtaining such advertisements. The advertisers are under the impression that the profits go to the Services. The size of the advertisement is not more than half it was originally, thus doubling the revenue. Of course, in these days the advertisement is of no value whatever. They are taken up simply for the benefit of the troops. Sir J. Grigg's assertion that the Chancellor takes 100 per cent. of the excess profits may be true, but 20 per cent. is to be returned as a statutory right after the war. If the profits per annum are £100,000, £20,000 would come back per annum
The House will see that it is not a trivial matter. £20,000 each from two advertisements is a very considerable sum of money to be accumulated for the benefit of one or two people who are running this business, I say very deliberately, as a racket. I said that when I put the Question, and I think it will be agreed that it is nothing more or less than a racket, which should be stopped. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for the Minister, since I raised the matter first there has been a court case. One of the men connected with one of these publications was involved in police court proceedings, and the story that I told the House originally was repeated in court by the police, so I do not think there can be any doubt that these people are obtaining, I think under false pretences, very considerable sums of


money. When the Minister told me he thought it was of no importance that they should be making these huge profits, even if it was true, I thought he was saying something that was very dangerous. The Treasury have always taken the view, through the Production Departments, that they were not to be influenced at all by how much came back to the Government through Excess Profits Tax and that everything must be based on a fair price and subject to costing.
Both the newspaper trade and the advertising profession feel that they have been done an injustice by the Minister allowing this thing to go on, well knowing that people were obtaining advertisements, and therefore money under false pretences, by making people believe that the money was going to the benefit of the troops when nothing of the kind was happening. I have not one word to say about the publications themselves. They are quite good publications. My only point is that if the people who put these advertisements in should as a result of what the Minister says to-day stop giving their support, I ask that the Government should find ways and means of taking over the publications so that the profits, which amount to not less than £150,000 a year, might go to the benefit of the troops and offset perhaps some of the injustices suffered by the troops from N.A.A.F.I. or provide them with benefits which they do not get from N.A.A.F.I. I hope that the Minister will be able to make that statement on the lines I have indicated and stop the racket, so that the troops will get the benefit of the profits.

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Arthur Henderson): My hon. Friend has raised a question concerning two periodicals, "United Services Review" and "Blighty," which are the subject of free distribution through the War Office and other Service channels to members of the Services. Perhaps I might give the House some information before I deal with the point which he has raised. I will first deal with the "United Services Review." The free distribution of this magazine was started in September, 1941, and distribution is affected through the medium of the Services Central Book Depot. The arrangement is that the War Office pays for the rail consignments at home and for shipment abroad. The numbers

of copies distributed are somewhat irregular, varying from 500 to 2,000 per week. As my hon. Friend stated, no complaint can be made of the contents of this magazine. It has contained interesting articles, some of them contributed by hon. Members of this House, and the magazine itself is well got up.
The paper is owned by a company called the Review Publications (Great Britain) Limited. It was formed on 14th January, 1942, with a nominal capital of £10,000, of which, I understand, three £1 shares are paid up. The company was formed and is apparently controlled by a Mr. Howard, and this gentleman was and is largely responsible for the running of the magazine. On 11th February of this year Mr. Howard was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and ordered to pay a fine of £300 and £50 costs after he had pleaded guilty to taking part in the management of a company when he was an undischarged bankrupt, contrary to Section 142 of the Companies Act. On appeal the sentence of imprisonment was remitted, but the fine remained, and no order was made as to costs in the circumstances. In the light of these facts the War Department have not considered it desirable to continue the arrangement with the company for the running of which Mr. Howard is largely responsible. The free distribution of this magazine has, therefore, been terminated from the end of this month.
As regards the other magazine, "Blighty," the position is that free distribution started in January, 1940. At first distribution was confined to the B.E.F. in France. Later it was distributed to the troops at home, but latterly, owing to paper restrictions, it has been largely confined to the troops abroad. There is a regular quota of 31,500 copies per week, averaging 1,600,000 copies per annum. This magazine is popular with the troops, and we are certainly not anxious to deprive them of this substantial quantity of reading material. It is a paper which, in our opinion, helps to fill a real need for the troops. It is obvious, I think, that having regard to the large numbers of our men who are serving in Africa, India, the Middle East and other parts of the world, there is a real need for suitable reading material. Indeed, there is a real need for suitable reading material for our troops serving at home. In these circumstances we are not prepared


to sacrifice such supplies except for good reasons.
My hon. Friend has referred to the enormous advertisement revenues which, he alleges, not only "United Services Review," but "Blighty" are enjoying. I am afraid that the War Office is not in a position to go into the finances of either company. If such papers are making undue profits that is a matter for the Inland Revenue. I understood from my hon. Friend that the suggestion that the profits that are derived from these advertisements were going for the benefit of the troops was made by those who were acting on behalf of "United Services Review" and not "Blighty."

Mr. Edwards: I said that the impression given in canvassing is that the profits go to the benefit of the troops in some way. That applies to both cases.

Mr. Henderson: If my hon. Friend will supply me with actual proof that those who canvass on behalf of "Blighty" for advertisements are in any way misleading those they approach by suggesting that the profits from advertisements are applied for the benefit of the troops, I will certainly be more than willing to have a proper investigation made. On the other hand, if at any time the management of a paper to which the War Office have accorded free distribution facilities is such as to bring it into conflict with the law, then we would undoubtedly consider whether free distribution facilities should be continued.

Mr. Driberg: If the War Office are going to distribute free to the troops periodicals which are run for private profit or otherwise, where do they draw the line? How do they select them from periodicals, such as "Picture Post," the "Daily Worker," the "Daily Express" and others popular among the troops?

Mr. Henderson: So far as "Picture Post" is concerned, the company which owns that magazine has from time to time given us large numbers of its publication which we have distributed to the troops as we do these other magazines.

Mr. A. Edwards: The Minister did not make any reference to the other paper, "Reveille." Is there any good reason why "Reveille" should be denied distribution? I think it is equally popular, as is confirmed by the fact that it has a circulation of 20,000, which neither of the others can boast.

Mr. Henderson: The matter did come to a head some time ago, when it was decided that "Reveille" was not suitable to be distributed.

Mr. Edwards: Because they criticised the War Office?

Mr. Henderson: I do not think that is so.

Question: "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.